Wmm

FKOM 'THE- LIBRARY' OF
- OTTO ^ BREMER

COLLECTION

OF

BEITISH AUTHORS.

VOL. XCF.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN PROSE; THE CHIMES;
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

BY

CHAHLES DICKENS.

TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

By the same Author,

THE PICKWICK CLUB (wiTH PORTRAIT) 2 Vols.

AMERICAN NOTES 1 VOl.

OLIVER TWIST 1 vol.

NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 2 vols.

SKETCHES 1 vol.

MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 2 vols.

MASTER Humphrey's clock (old curiosity shop,

BARNABY RUDGE, ETC.) 3 vols.

pictures from ITALY 1 vol.

DOMBEY AND SON 3vols.

COPPERFIELD 3 vols.

BLEAK HOUSE 4 vols.

HARD TIMES 1 vol.

LITTLE DORRIT 4 vols.

THE BATTLE OF LIFE ; THE HAUNTED MAN .... 1 vol.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES 2 vols.

HUNTED DOWN; THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER . . 1 vol.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS 2 vols.

CHRISTMAS STORIES 1 vol.

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 4 vols.

somebody's LUGGAGE, ETC 1 vol.

DOCTOR marigold's PRESCRIPTIONS, ETC 1 vol.

NO THOROUGHFARE 1 vol.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD 2 vols.

THE MUDFOG PAPERS, ETC 1 vol.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS conducted by CHARLES DICKENS . 3 6 vols.
NOVELS AND TALES reprinted from Household Words

conducted by CHARLES DICKENS 11 vols.

A

CHRISTMAS CAROL W PROSE;
THE CHIMES;

THE

CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

BY

CHARLES DICKENS.

COPYRIGHT EDITION.

LEIPZIG

BERN HARD TAUCHNITZ
1846.

\ST^^,A/v/v€t.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

IN PROSE.

BEING

A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS.

CONTENTS.

STAVE I. j,^^^

Marley's Ghost 9

STAVE II.
The First of the Three Spirits 33

STAVE III.
The Second of the Three Spirits 55

STAVE IV.
The Last of the Spirits 84

STAVE V.
The End of it . . . 104

A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

STAVE :. . - ^ .

Marley's Ghost.

Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no
doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial
was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the under-
taker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And
Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything
he chose to put his hand to.

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own
knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a
door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to
regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery
in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in
the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb
it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore per-
mit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as
dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did.
How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were
partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge
was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole
assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and
sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dread-

10 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

fully cut ujD by the sad event, but that he was an ex-
cellent man of business on the very day of the funeral,
and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back
to the point I started from. There is no doubt that
lyfaxley was/4ead. . This must be distinctly understood,
or" nothing wonderful can come of the story I am
going: to. relate. If we were not perfectly convinced
that* Samlet'^ Father died before the play began, there
would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a
stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own
ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-
aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a
breezy spot — say Saint Paul's Church yard for instance
— literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name.
There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse
door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as
Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the
business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley,
but he answered to both names. It was all the same
to him.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-
stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping,
scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and
sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out
generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary
as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old
features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek,
stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips
blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A
frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and
his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. II

always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-
days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on
Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather
chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no
falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no
pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't
know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and
snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage
over him in only one respect. They often "came
down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with
gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you?
When will you come to see me?" No beggars im-
plored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him
what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all
his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of
Scrooge. Even the blindmen's dogs appeared to know
him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug
their owners into doorways and up courts; and then
would wag their tails as though they said, "no eye at
all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"

But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing
he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths
of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its dis-
tance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to
Scrooge.

Once upon a time — of all the good days in the
year, on Christmas Eve — old Scrooge sat busy in his
counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather:
foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the
court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their
hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon

12 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks
had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already
— it had not been light all day — and candles were
flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like
ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog
came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was
so dense without, that although the court was of the
narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.
To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscur-
ing everything, one might have thought that Nature
lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open,
that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a
dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying
letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's
fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one
coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept
the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the
clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted
that it would be necessary for them to part. Where-
fore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to
warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being
a man of strong imagination, he failed.

"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried
a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew,
who came upon him so quickly that this was the first
intimation he had of his approach.

"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in
the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he
was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome;
his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again,

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 1 3

"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's
nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?"

"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What
right have you to be merry? What reason have you
to be merry? You're poor enough."

"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What
right have you to be dismal? What reason have you
to be morose? You're rich enough."

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur
of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it
up with "Humbug!"

"Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.

"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I
live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christ-
mas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas
time to you but a time for paying bills without money;
a time for finding yourself a year older, and not ah
hour richer; a time for balancing your books and
having every item in 'em through a round dozen of
months presented dead against you? If I could work
my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who
goes about with * Merry Christmas,' on his lips, should
be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a
stake of holly through his heart. He should!"

"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.

"Nephew!" returned the uncle, sternly, "keep
Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in
mine."

"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you
don't keep it."

"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much
good may it do you! Much good it has ever done
you!"

14 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

"There are many things from which I might have
derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare
say," returned the nephew, " Christmas among the rest.
But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas
time, when it has come round — apart from the venera-
tion due to its sacred name and origin, if anything
belonging to it can be apart from that — as a good
time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the
only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year,
when men and women seem by one consent to open
their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people
below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to
the grave, and not another race of creatures bound
on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it
has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket,
I believe that it has done me good, and will do me
good; and I say, God bless it!"

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded.
Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he
poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for
ever.

"Let me hear another sound from you^'' said
Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing
your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker, sir,"
he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder you don't
go into Parliament."

"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-
morrow."

Scrooge said that he would see him — yes, indeed
he did. He went the whole length of the expression,
and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

"But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?"

"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 1 5

"Because I fell in love."

"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as
if that were the only one thing in the world more
ridiculous than a merry Christmas. "Good after-
noon!"

"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me be-
fore that happened. Why give it as a reason for not
coming now?"

"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.

"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you;
why cannot we be friends?"

"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.

"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so
resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I
have been a party. But I have made the trial in
homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas
humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!"

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

"And A Happy New Year!"

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

His nephew left the room without an angry word,
notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to
bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who,
cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he re-
turned them cordially.

"There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who
overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a-week,
and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christ-
mas. I'll retire to Bedlam."

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had
let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen,
pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off,

l6. A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in
their hands, and bowed to him.

"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the
gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure
of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"

"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,"
Scrooge replied. "He died seven years ago, this very
night."

"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented
by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, present-
ing his credentials.

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred
spirits. At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge
frowned, and shook his head, and handed the creden-
tials back,

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,"
said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than
usually desirable that we should make some slight pro-
vision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly
at the present time. Many thousands are in want of
common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in
want of common comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying
down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge.
"Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish
I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour
then?" said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, sir."

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 1 7

something had occurred to stop them in their useful
course," said Scrooge. "I am very glad to hear it."

"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish
Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,"
returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring
to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink,
and means of warmth. We choose this time, because
it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt,
and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down
for?"

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.

"You wish to be anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since
you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.
I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't
afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the
establishments I have mentioned — they cost enough:
and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they
had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.
Besides — excuse me — I don't know that."

"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.

"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's
enough for a man to understand his own business,
and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies
me constantly. Good afternoon, Gentlemen!"

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue
their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed
his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and
in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that
people ran about with flaring links, proffering their

A Ck-n'sivia.'! Carol , etc. 2

is A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

•services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct
them on their way. The ancient tower of a church,
whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at
Scrooge out of a gothic window in the wall, became
invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the
clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its
teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. The
cold became intense. In the main street, at the cor-
ner of the court, some labourers were repairing the^
gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier,
round which a party of ragged men and boys were
gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes
before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left
in solitude, its overflowings suddenly congealed, and
turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the
shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the
lamp-heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as
they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a
splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which it was
next to impossible to believe that such dull principles
as bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord
Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion
House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to
keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should;
and even the little tailor, whom he had fined 'five
shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and
blood-thirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow's
pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and the baby
sallied out to buy the beef.

Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting
cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped the
Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that,
instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 1 9

would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of
one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the
hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped
down at Scrooge's key-hole to regale him with a
Christmas carol; but at the first sound of —

"God bless you merry gentleman,
May nothing you dismay I "

Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action,
that the singer fled in terror, leaving the key-hole to
the fog and even more congenial frost.

At length the hour of shutting up the counting-
house arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted
from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the
expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his
candle out, and put on his hat.

"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said
Scrooge.

"If quite convenient, Sir."

"It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not
fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think
yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?"

The clerk smiled faintly.

"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-
used, when I pay a day's wages for no work."

The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every
twenty-fifth of December!" said Scrooge, buttoning
his great coat to the chin. "But I suppose you must
have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next
morning."

The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge
walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a
twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his

20 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

white comforter dangling below his waist (for he
boasted no great coat), went down a slide on Cornhill,
at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour
of its being Christmas-eve, and then ran home to Cam-
den Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blind-
man's buff.

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual
melancholy tavern; and having read all the news-
papers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his
banker's-book, went home to bed. He lived in cham-
bers which had once belonged to his deceased partner.
They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile
of building up a yard, where it had so little business
to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must
have run there when it was a young house, playing at
hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten
the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary
enough; for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other
rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so
dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was
fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so
hung about the black old gateway of the house, that
it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in
mournful meditation on the threshold.

Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all par-
ticular about the knocker on the door, except that it
was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen
it, night and morning, during his whole residence in
that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is
called fancy about him as any man in the City of
London, even including — which is a bold word — the
corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne
in mind, that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 21

on Marley since his last mention of his seven-years'
dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man
explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge,
having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the
knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate pro-
cess of change — not a knocker, but Marley's face.

Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow,
as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal
light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It
was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as
Marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned
up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously
stirred, as if by breath or hot-air; and, though the
eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless.
That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its
horror seemed to be in spite of the face, and beyond
its control, rather than a part of its own expression.

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it
was a knocker again.

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood
was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it
had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue.
But he put his hand upon the key he had relin-
quished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his
candle.

He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before
he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind
it first, as if he half-expected to be terrified with the
sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall.
But there was nothing on the back of the door, except
the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he
said "Pooh, pooh!" and closed it with a bang.

The sound resounded through the house like

Z2 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

thunder. Every room above, and every cask in the
wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a
separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not
a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the
door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs;
slowly too: trimming his candle as he went.

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-
six up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad
young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you
might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken
it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall
and the door towards the balustrades: and done it
easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room
to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge
thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before
him in the gloom. Half a dozen gas-lamps out of
the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well,
so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with
Scrooge's dip.

Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that.
Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before
he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms
to see that all was right. He had just enough re-
collection of the face to desire to do that.

Sitting-room, bed-room, lumber-room. All as they
should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under
the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin
ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had
a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the
bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-
gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude
against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 2^

guard, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on
three legs, and a poker.

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked him-
self in; double-locked himself in, which was not his
custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off
his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and
his night-cap; and sat down before the fire to take
his gruel.

It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a
bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and
brood over it, before he could extract the least sensa-
tion of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fire-
place was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant
long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch
tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were
Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters. Queens of
Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the
air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars,
Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds
of figures, to attract his thoughts; and yet that face
of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient
Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each
smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to
shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed
fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a
copy of old Marley's head on every one.

"Humbug!" said Scrooge; and walked across the
room.

After several turns, he sat down again. As he
threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened
to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the
room, and communicated for some purpose now for-
gotten with a chamber in the highest story of the

24 A CHRISTMAS CAKOL.

building. It was with great astonishment, and with a
strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw
this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the
outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang
out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute,
but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had
begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking
noise, deep down below, as if some person were
dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-
merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have
heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described
as dragging chains.

The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound,
and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors
below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight
towards his door.

"It's humbug still!" said Scrooge. "I won't be-
lieve it."

His colour changed though, when, without a pause,
it came on through the heavy door, and passed into
the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the
dying flame leaped up, as though it cried "I know
him! Marley's ghost!" and fell again.

The same face: the very same. Marley in his pig-
tail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on
the latter bristling, like his pig-tail, and his coat-
skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he
drew was clasped about his middle. It was long and
wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for
Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, pad-
locks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in
steel. His body was transparent; so that Scrooge,

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 25

observing him, and looking through his waistcoat,
could see the two buttons on his coat behind.

Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had
no bowels, but he had never believed it until now.

No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he
looked the phantom through and through, and saw it
standing before him; though he felt the chilling in-
fluence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very
texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head
and chin, which wrapper he had not observed be-
fore; he was still incredulous, and fought against his
senses.

"How now!" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as
ever. "What do you want with me?"

"Much!" — Marley's voice, no doubt about it.

"Who are you?"

"Ask me who I was.^^

"Who were you then?" said Scrooge, raising his
voice. "You're particular, for a shade." He was
going to say "-to a shade," but substituted this, as
more appropriate.

"In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley."

"Can you — can you sit down?" asked Scrooge,
looking doubtfully at him.

"I can."

"Do it, then."

Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know
whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in
a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event
of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity
of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat
down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he
were quite used to it.

26 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

"You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost.

"I don't," said Scrooge.

"What evidence would you have of my reality
beyond that of your senses?"

"I don't know," said Scrooge.

"Why do you doubt your senses?"

"Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects
them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them
cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a
blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an
underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of
grave about you, whatever you are!"

Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking
jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means
waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart,
as a means of distracting his own attention, and
keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice dis-
turbed the very marrow in his bones.

To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence
for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce
with him. There was something very awful, too, in
the spectre's being provided with an infernal at-
mosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it him-
self, but this was clearly the case; for though the
Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts,
and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour
from an oven.

"You see this toothpick?" said Scrooge, returning
quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned;
and wishing, though it were only for a second, to
divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.

"I do," replied the Ghost.

"You are not looking at it," said Scrooge.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 27

"But I see it," said the Ghost, "notwithstandmg."

"Well!" returned Scrooge, "I have but to swallow
this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a
legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug,
I tell you; humbug!"

At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook
its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that
Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself
from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was
his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage
round his head, as if it were too warm to wear in-
doors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!

Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands
before his face.

"Mercy!" he said. "Dreadful apparition, why do
you trouble me?"

"Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost,
"do you believe in me or not?"

"I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits
walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"

"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned,
"that the spirit within him should walk abroad among
his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that
spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so
after death. It is doomed to wander through the
world — oh, woe is me! — and witness what it cannot
share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to
happiness!"

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain
and wrung its shadowy hands.

"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell
me why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the

28 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I
girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free
will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"

Scrooge trembled more and more.

"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the
weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?
It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christ-
mas Eves ago. You have laboured on it since. It is
a ponderous chain!"

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the
expectation of finding himself surrounded by some
fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable; but he could see
nothing.

"Jacob," he said, imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley,
tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!"

"I have none to give," the Ghost replied. "It
comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is
conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men.
Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more,
is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay,
I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked
beyond our counting-house — mark me! — in life my
spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our
money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before
me!"

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became
thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets.
Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so
now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his
knees.

"You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,"
Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though
with humility and deference.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 2g

"Slow!" the Ghost repeated.

"Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. "And travel-
ling all the time?"

"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no
peace. Incessant torture of remorse!"

"You travel fast?" said Scrooge.

"On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost.

"You might have got over a great quantity of
ground in seven years," said Scrooge.

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and
clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of
the night, that the Ward would have been justified in
indicting it for a nuisance.

"Oh! captive, bound and double-ironed," cried the
phantom, "not to know that ages of incessant labour,
by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into
eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is
all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit
working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be,
will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of
usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can
make amends for one life's opportunities misused!
Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"

"But you were always a good man of business,
Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this
to himself.

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands
again. "Mankind was my business. The common
welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance,
and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings
of my trade were but a drop of water in the compre-
hensive ocean of my business!"

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were

30 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily
upon the ground again.

"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said,
"I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of
fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never
raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise
Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to
which its light would have conducted mel^^

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the
spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake ex-
ceedingly.

"Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly
gone."

"I will," said Scrooge. "But don't be hard upon
me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!"

"How it is that I appear before you in a shape
that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible
beside you many and many a day."

It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and
wiped the perspiration from his brow.

"That is no light part of my penance," pursued
the Ghost. "I am here to-night to warn you, that you
have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A
chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."

"You were always a good friend to me," said
Scrooge. "Thank'ee!"

"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by
Three Spirits."

Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the
Ghost's had done.

"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned
Jacob?" he demanded, in a faltering voice.

"It is."

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 3 1

"I — I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge.

"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot
hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-
morrow, when the bell tolls One."

"Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over,
Jacob?" hinted Scrooge.

"Expect the second on the next night at the same
hour. The third, upon the next night when the last
stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see
me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you
remember what has passed between us!"

When it had said these words, the spectre took its
wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head,
as before. Scrooge knew this by the smart sound its
teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by
the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and
found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an
erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about
its arm.

The apparition walked backward from him; and at
every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so
that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open. It
beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When
they were within two paces of each other, Marley's
Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no
nearer. Scrooge stopped.

Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear;
for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of
confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamen-
tation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and
self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a mo-
ment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out
upon the bleak, dark night.

32 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his
curiosity. He looked out.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither
and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they
went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's
Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments)
were linked together; none were free. Many had been
personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had
been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white
waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its
ancle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a
wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below,
upon a door-step. The misery with them all was,
clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in
human matters and had lost the power for ever.

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist
enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and
their spirit voices faded together; and the night be-
came as it had been when he walked home.

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door
by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-
locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and
the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say "Hum-
bug!" but stopped at the first syllable. And being,
from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues
of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or
the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness
of the hour, much in need of repose, went straight
to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the
instant.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL, ^;^

STAVE II.

The First of the Three Spirits.

When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that, look-
ing out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the
transparent window from the opaque walls of his
chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the dark-
ness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neigh-
bouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened
for the hour.

To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on
from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regu-
larly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was
past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong.
An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct
this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse
beat twelve, and stopped.

"Why, it isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can
have slept through a whole day and far into another
night. It isn't possible that anything has happened to
the sun, and this is twelve at noon!"

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out
of bed, and groped his way to the window. He was
obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his
dressing-gown before he could see anytliing; and could
see very little then. All he could make out was, that
it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that
there was no noise of people running to and fro, and
making a great stir, as there unquestionably would
have been if night had beaten off bright day, and
taken possession of the world. This was a great relief,

A ChHstmas Carol, etc, 3

34 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

because "Three days after sight of this First of Ex-
change pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,"
and so forth, would have become a mere United States'
security if there were no days to count by.

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and
thought, and thought it over and over, and could
make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more
perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured not
to think, the more he thought.

Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every
time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry,
that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like
a strong spring released, to its first position, and pre-
sented the same problem to be worked all through,
"Was it a dream or not?"

Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone
three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden,
that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when
the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the
hour was passed; and, considering that he could no
more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps
the wisest resolution in his power.

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once
convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously,
and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his
listening ear.

"Ding, dong!"

"A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting.

"Ding, dong!"

"Half-past!" said Scrooge.

"Ding, dong!"

"A quarter to it," said Scrooge.

"Ding, dong!"

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 35

"The hour itself," said Scrooge, triumphantly, "and
nothing else!"

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it
now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One.
Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the
curtains of his bed were drawn.

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell
you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor
the curtains at his back, but those to which his face
was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn
aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent
attitude, found himself face to face with the un-
earthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I
am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at
your elbow.

It was a strange figure — like a child: yet not so
like a child as like an old man, viewed through some
supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance
of having receded from the view, and being diminished
to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about
its neck and down its back, was white as if with age;
and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the
tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very
long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold
were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most
delicately formed, were, like those upper members,
bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round
its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which
was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly
in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that
wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer
flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that
from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear

3*

36 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

jet of light, by wliich all this was visible; and which
was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller
moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now
held under its arm.

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with
increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For
as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and
now in another, and what was light one instant, at an-
other time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in
its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now
with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs
without a head, now a head without a body: of which
dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the
dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the
very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct
and clear as ever.

"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold
to me?" asked Scrooge.

"I am!"

The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as
if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a
distance.

"Who, and what are you?" Scrooge demanded.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"Long Past?" inquired Scrooge; observant of its
dwarfish stature.

"No. Your past."

Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why,
if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special
desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to
be covered.

"What!" exclaimed the Ghost, "would you so soon
put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 37

not enough that you are one of those whose passions
made this cap, and force me through whole trains of
years to wear it low upon my brow!"

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to of-
fend or any knowledge of having wilfully "bonneted"
the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made
bold to inquire what business brought him there.

"Your welfare!" said the Ghost.

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but
could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest
would have been more conducive to that end. The
Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said im-
mediately:

"Your reclamation, then. Take heed!"

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped
him gently by the arm.

"Rise! and walk with me!"

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead
that the weather and the hour were not adapted to
pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the
thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was
clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and
nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that
time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand,
was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the
Spirit made towards the window, clasped its robe in
supplication.

"I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, "and liable
to fall."

"Bear but a touch of my hand there ^^ said the
Spirit, laying it upon his heart, "and you shall be up-
held in more than this!"

As the words were spoken, they passed through the

38 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields
on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not
a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the
mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold,
winter day, with snow upon the ground.

"Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his hands
together, as he looked about him. "I was bred in this
place. I was a boy here!"

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle
touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, ap-
peared still present to the old man's sense of feeling.
He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the
air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and
hopes, and joys, and cares long, long forgotten!

"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And
what is that upon your cheek?"

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his
voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to
lead him where he would.

"You recollect the way?" inquired the Spirit.

"Remember it!" cried Scrooge with fervour; "I
could walk it blindfold."

"Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!"
observed the Ghost. "Let us go on."

They walked along the road. Scrooge recognising
every gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-
town appeared in the distance, with is bridge, its
church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now
were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their
backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and
carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great
spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 39

fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air
laughed to hear it.

"These are but shadows of the things that have
been," said the Ghost. "They have no consciousness
of us."

The jocund travellers came on; and as they came,
Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was
he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them! Why did
his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they
went past! Why was he filled with gladness when
he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as
they parted at cross-roads and bye -ways, for their
several homes! What was merry Christmas to
Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good
had it ever done to him?

"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost.
"A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there
still."

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

They left the high-road, by a well -remembered
lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red
brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on
the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large
house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious
offices were little used, their walls were damp and
mossy, their windows broken, and their gates de-
cayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables;
and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with
grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient
state, within; for entering the dreary hall, and glanc-
ing through the open doors of many rooms, they
found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There
was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness

40 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

in the place, which associated itself somehow with
too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much
to eat.

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall,
to a door at the back of the house. It opened before
them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room,
made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and
desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near
a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and
wept to see his poor forgotten self as he had used
to be.

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and
scuffle from the mice behind the panneling, not a drip
from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard be-
hind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one
despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty
storehouse-door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell
upon the heart of Scrooge with softening influence,
and gave a freer passage to his tears.

The spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed
to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Sud-
denly a man, in foreign garments: wonderfully real
and distinct to look at: stood outside the window,
with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle
an ass laden with wood.

"Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ec-
stacy. "It's dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I
know. One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child
was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time,
just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine," said
Scrooge, "and his wild brother, Orson; there they go!
And what's his name, who was put down in his drawers,
asleep, at the gate of Damascus; don't you see him!

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 4 1

And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the
Genii: there he is upon his head! Serve him right.
I'm glad of it. What business had he to be married
to the Princess!"

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of
his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary
voice between laughing and crying; and to see his
heightened and excited face; would have been a sur-
prise to his business friends in the city, indeed.

"There's the Parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body
and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out
of the top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin
Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after
sailing round the island. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where
have you been, Robin Crusoe?' The man thought he
was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the Parrot, you
know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the
little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!"

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to
his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self,
"Poor boy!" and cried again.

"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his
pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes
with his cuff: "but it's too late now."

"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.

"Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing. There was
a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last
night. I should like to have given him something:
that's all."

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its
hand: saying as it did so, "Let us see another Christ-
mas!"

Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words,

42 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

and the room became a little darker and more dirty.
The pannels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments
of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths
were shown instead; but how all this was brought
about, Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only
knew that it was quite correct; that everything had
happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all
the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.

He was not reading now, but walking up and
down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and
with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously
towards the door.

It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the
boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about his
neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her
"Dear, dear brother."

"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!"
said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending
down to laugh. "To bring you home, home, home!"

"Home, little Fan?" returned the boy.

"Yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "Home,
for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father
is so much kinder than he used to be, that home's
like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night
when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask
him once more if you might come home; and he said
Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring
you. And you're to be a man!" said the child, open-
ing her eyes; "and are never to come back here; but
first, we're to be together all the Christmas long, and
have the merriest time in all the world."

"You are quite a woman, little Fan!" exclaimed
the boy.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 43

She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to
touch his head; but being too little, laughed again,
and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began
to drag him, in her childish eagerness towards the
door; and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her.

A terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down
Master Scrooge's box, there!" and in the hall appeared
the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge
with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a
dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him.
He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest
old well of a shivering best-parlour that ever was seen,
where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and
terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold.
Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine,
and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered
instalments of those dainties to the young people: at
the same time, sending out a meagre servant to oifer
a glass of "something" to the postboy, who answered
that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same
tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master
Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on to the top
of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-
bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove gaily
down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the
hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the
evergreens like spray.

"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might
have withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large
heart!"

"So she had," cried Scrooge. "You're right. I will
not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!"

44 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

"She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as
I think, children."

"One child," Scrooge returned.

"True," said the Ghost. "Your nephew!"

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered
briefly, "Yes."

Although they had but that moment left the school
behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares
of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and re-
passed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for
the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city
were. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of
the shops, that here too it was Christmas time again;
but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door,
and asked Scrooge if he knew it.

"Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed
here?"

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a
Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if
he had been two inches taller he must have knocked
his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great
excitement:

"Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it's Fez-
ziwig alive again!"

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at
the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He
rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat;
laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ
of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily,
rich, fat, jovial voice:

"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 45

Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man,
came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.

"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the
Ghost. "Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very
much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear,
dear!"

"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work
to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer!
Let's have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with
a sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can say Jack
Robinson!"

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went
at it! They charged into the street with the shutters
— one, two, three — had 'em up in their places — four,
five, six — barred 'em and pinned 'em — seven, eight,
nine — and came back before you could have got to
twelve, panting like race-horses.

"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from
the high desk, with wonderful agility. "Clear away,
my lads, and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho,
Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!"

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have
cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old
Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every
movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from
public life for evermore; the floor v/as swept and
watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped
upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and
warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would
desire to see upon a winter's night.

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up
to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and
tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig,

46 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss
Fezziwigs, beaming and loveable. In came the six
young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all
the young men and women employed in the business.
In came the housemaid, with her cousin the baker.
In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend,
the milkman. In came the boy from over the way,
who was suspected of not having board enough from
his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from
next door but one, who was proved to have had her
ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one
after another; some shyly, some boldly, some grace-
fully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling;
in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they
all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and
back again the other way; down the middle and up
again; round and round in various stages of affec-
tionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in
the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as
soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and
not a bottom one to help them! When this result
was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands
to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the
fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter,
especially provided for that purpose. But scorning
rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again,
though there were no dancers yet, as if the other
fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter,
and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him
out of sight, or perish.

There were more dances, and there were forfeits,
and more dances, and there was cake, and there was
negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 47

there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were
mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of
the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when
the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man
who knew his business better than you or I could have
told it him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley."
Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fez-
ziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of
work cut out for them; three or four and twenty
pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled
with; people who would dance, and had no notion of
walking.

But if they had been twice as many — ah, four times
— old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and
so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to
be his partner in every sense of the term. If that's
not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A
positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves.
They shone in every part of the dance like moons.
You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what
would become of them next. And when old Fezziwig
and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance;
advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow
and curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back
again to your place; Fezziwig "cut" — cut so deftly,
that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon
his feet again without a stagger.

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball
broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations,
one on either side the door, and shaking hands with
every person individually as he or she went out, wished
him or her a Merry Christmas. When everbody had
retired but the two 'prentices, they did the same to

48 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the
lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter
in the back-shop.

During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted
like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were
in the scene, and with his former self He corro-
borated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed
everything and underwent the strangest agitation. It
was not until now, when the bright faces of his former
self and Dick were turned from them, that he remem-
bered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was
looking full upon him, while the light upon its head
burnt very clear.

"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these
silly folks so full of gratitude."

"Small!" echoed Scrooge.

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two ap-
prentices, v/ho were pouring out their hearts in praise
of Fezziwig: and when he had done so said,

"Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds
of your mortal money: three or four, perhaps. Is
that so much that he deserves this praise?"

"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark,
and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his
latter self "It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power
to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service
light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that
his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight
and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count
'em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite
as great as if it cost a fortune."

He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.

"What is the matter?" asked the Ghost.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 49

"Nothing particular," said Scrooge.

"Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted.

"No," said Scrooge, "No. I should like to be
able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That's
all."

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave
utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again
stood side by side in the open air.

"My time grows short," observed the Spirit.
"Quick!"

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one
whom he could see, but it produced an immediate
effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older
now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not
the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had
begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There
was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which
showed the passion that had taken root, and where the
shadow of the growing tree would fall.

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair
young girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there
were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out
of the Ghost of Christmas Past.

"It matters little," she said softly. "To you, very
little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can
cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would
have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve."

"What Idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.

"A golden one."

"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!"
he said. "There is nothing on which it is so hard as
poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn
with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!"

A Ckfistmas Carol, etc, 4

50 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

"You fear the world too much," she answered,
gently. "All your other hopes have merged into the
hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach.
I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one,
until the master-passion. Gain, engrosses you. Have
I not?"

"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown
so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards
you."

She shook her head.

"Am I?"

"Our contract is an old one. It was made when
we were both poor and content to be so, until, in
good season, we could improve our worldly fortune
by our patient industry. You are changed. When it
was made, you were another man."

"I was a boy," he said impatiently.

"Your own feeling tells you that you were not
what you are," she returned. "I am. That which
promised happiness when we were one in heart, is
fraught with misery now that we are two. How often
and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say.
It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release
you."

"Have I ever sought release?"

"In words. No. Never."

"In what, then?"

"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in
another atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great
end. In everything that made my love of any worth
or value in your sight. If this had never been between
us," said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness,

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 5 I

upon him; "tell me, would you seek me out and try-
to win me now? Ah, no!"

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposi-
tion, in spite of himself. But he said, with a struggle,
"You think not."

"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she
answered, "Heaven knows! When /have learned a
Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it
must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow,
yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a
dowerless girl — you who, in your very confidence with
her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for
a moment you were false enough to your one guiding
principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance
and regret would surely follow? I do; and I re-
lease you. With a full heart, for the love of him you
once were."

He was about to speak; but with her head turned
from him, she resumed.

"You may — the memory of what is past half makes
me hope you will — have pain in this. A very, very
brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it,
gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it hap-
pened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the
life you have chosen!"

She left him, and they parted.

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, "show me no more! Con-
duct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?"

"One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.

"No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more. I don't
wish to see it. Show me no more!"

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his

52 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

arms, and forced him to observe what happened
next.

They were in another scene and place; a room, not
very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to
the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that
last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he
saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her
daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumul-
tuous, for there were more children there, than Scrooge
in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike
the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty
children conducting themselves like one, but every
child was conducting itself like forty. The conse-
quences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one
seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and
daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much;
and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports,
got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly.
What would I not have given to be one of them!
Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I
wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed
that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the pre-
cious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God
bless my soul! to save my life. As to measuring her
waist in sport as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't
have done it; I should have expected my arm to have
grown round it for a punishment, and never come
straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I
own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her,
that she might have opened them; to have looked
upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised
a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of
which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 53

sliould have liked, I do confess, to have had the
hghtest Hcence of a child, and yet to have been man
enough to know its value.

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and
such a rush immediately ensued that she with laughing
face and plundered dress was born towards it in the
centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time
to greet the father, who came home attended by a man
laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the
shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught that
was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling him,
with chairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil
him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat,
hug him round the neck, pommel his back, and kick
his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of won-
der and delight with which the development of every
package was received! The terrible announcement
that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a
doll's frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than
suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued
on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding
this a false alarm! The joy, and gratitude, and
ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is enough
that, by degrees, the children and their emotions got
out of the parlour, and, by one stair at a time, up to
the top of the house, where they went to bed, and so
subsided.

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than
ever, when the master of the house, having his
daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her
and her mother at his own fireside; and when he
thought that such another creature, quite as graceful
and as full of promise, might have called him father,

54 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his
life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with
a smile, "I saw an old friend of yours this after-
noon."

"Who was it?"

"Guess!"

"How can I? Tut, don't I know," she added,
in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr.
Scrooge."

"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window;
and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside,
I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies
upon the point of death, I hear; and there he sat
alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe."

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, in a broken voice, "remove
me from this place."

"I told you these were shadows of the things that
have been," said the Ghost. "That they are what
they are, do not blame me!"

"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed. "I cannot
bear it!"

He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked
upon him with a face, in which in some strange way
there were fragments of all the faces it had shown
him, wrestled with it.

"Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!"

In the struggle — if that can be called a struggle in
which the Ghost, with no visible resistance on its own
part, was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary —
Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and
bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 55

over him, he seized the extinguisher- cap, and by a
sudden action pressed it down upon its head.

The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extin-
guisher covered its whole form; but though Scrooge
pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide
the light, which streamed from under it, in an un-
broken flood upon the ground.

He was conscious of being exhausted, and over-
come by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of
being in his own bed-room. He gave the cap a part-
ing squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had
barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy
sleep.

STAVE III.

The Second of the Three Spirits.

Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough
snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts to-
gether, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the
bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that
he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of
time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference
with the second messenger despatched to him through
Jacob Marley's intervention. But, finding that he
turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder
which of his curtains this new spectre would draw
back, he put them every one aside with his own
hands, and lying down again, established a sharp look-
out all round the bed. For he wished to challenge the
Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not
wish to be taken by surprise, and made nervous.

Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume

56 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

themselves on being acquainted with a move or two,
and being usually equal to the time-of-day, express
the wide range of their capacity for adventure by
observing that they are good for anything from pitch-
and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite
extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and
comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing
for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind
calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good
broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing
between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished
him very much.

Now, being prepared for almost an5^hing, he was
not by any means prepared for nothing; and, conse-
quently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape
appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling.
Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went
by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay upon his
bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy
light, which streamed upon it when the clock pro-
claimed the hour; and which, being only light, was
more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was power-
less to make out what it meant, or would be at; and
was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that
very moment an interesting case of spontaneous com-
bustion, without having the consolation of knowing it.
At last, however, he began to think — as you or I
would have thought at first; for it is always the person
not in the predicament who knows what ought to have
been done in it, and would unquestionably have done
it too — at last, I say, he began to think that the source
and secret of this ghostly light might be in the ad-
joining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 57

seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession of
his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers
to the door.

The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a
strange voice called him by his name, and bade him
enter. He obeyed.

It was his own room. There was no doubt about
that. But it had undergone a surprising transforma-
tion. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living
green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part
of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp
leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the
light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered
there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the
chimney, as that dull petrifaction of a hearth had
never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for
many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on
the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese,
game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-
pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-pud-
dings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-
cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense
twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made
the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy
state upon this couch there sat a jolly Giant, glorious
to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not un-
like Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed
its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the
door.

"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in! and
know me better, man!"

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before
this Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had

58 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

been; and though the Spirit's eyes were clear and
kind, he did not like to meet them.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the
Spirit. "Look upon me!"

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one
simple deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with
white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure,
that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to
be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observ-
able beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also
bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than
a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles.
Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its
genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery
voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air.
Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but
no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten
up with rust.

"You have never seen the like of me before!" ex-
claimed the Spirit.

"Never," Scrooge made answer to it.

"Have never walked forth with the younger mem-
bers of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my
elder brothers born in these later years?" pursued the
Phantom.

"I don't think I have," said Scrooge. "I am afraid
I have not. Plave you had many brothers, Spirit?"

"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost.

"A tremendous family to provide for," muttered
Scrooge.

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

"Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me
where you will. I went forth last night on compul-

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 59

sion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. To-
night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit
by it."

"Touch my robe!"

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese,
game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters,
pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly.
So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of
night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas
morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people
made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of
music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front
of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses,
whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come
plumping down into the road below, and splitting into
artificial little snow-storms.

The house fronts looked black enough, and the win-
dows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet
of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow
upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed
up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and
waggons; furrows that crossed and re-crossed each other
hundreds of times where the great streets branched
off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace, in the
thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy,
and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy
mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles
descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the
chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught
fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts' con-
tent. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate
or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness

6o A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest
summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in
vain.

For, the people who were shovelling away on the
house-tops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to
one another from the parapets, and now and then ex-
changing a facetious snow-ball — better-natured missile
far than many a wordy jest — laughing heartily if it
went right, and not less heartily if it went wrong.
The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the
fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were
great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped
like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at
the doors, and tumbling out in the street in their
apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced,
broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of
their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from
their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they
went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistle-
toe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in
blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes,
made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle from
conspicuous hooks that people's mouths might water
gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy
and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks
among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep
through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins,
squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the
oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of
their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching
to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after din-
ner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among
these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 6 1

dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that
there was something going on; and, to a fish, went
gasping round and round their little world in slow and
passionless excitement.

The Grocers'! oh the Grocers'! nearly closed, with
perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those
gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales
descending on the counter made a merry sound, or
that the twine and roller parted company so briskly,
or that the canisters were rattled up and down like
juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea
and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that
the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so
extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and
straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied
fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to
make the coldest lookers on feel faint and subsequently
bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy,
or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness
from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything
was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the
customers were all so hurried and so eager in the
hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up
against each other at the door, crashing their wicker
baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter,
and came running back to fetch them, and committed
hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour pos-
sible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank
and fresh that the polished hearts with which they
fastened their aprons behind might have been their own,
worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas
daws to peck at if they chose.

But soon the steeples called good people all, to

tz A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through
the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest
faces. And at the same time there emerged from
scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, in-
numerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers'
shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to
interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge
beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the
covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on
their dinners from his torch. And it was a very un-
common kind of torch, for once or twice when there
were angry words between some dinner-carriers who
had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water
on them from it, and their good humour was restored
directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel
upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so
it was!

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut
up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all
these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in
the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven;
where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cook-
ing too.

"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle
from your torch?" asked Scrooge.

"There is. My own."

"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?"
asked Scrooge.

"To any kindly given. To a poor one most."

"Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge.

"Because it needs it most."

"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought,
"I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 63

about US, should desire to cramp these people's oppor-
tunities of innocent enjoyment."

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You would deprive them of their means of din-
ing every seventh day, often the only day on which they
can be said to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't
you?"

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You seek to close these places on the SeventhDay?"
said Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing."

"/seek!" exclaimed the Spirit.

"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in
your name, or at least in that of your family," said
Scrooge.

"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned
the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their
deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry,
and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us
and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived.
Remember that, and charge their doings on them-
selves, not us."

Scrooge promised that he would; and they went
on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of
the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost
(which Scrooge had observed at the baker's,) that not-
withstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate
himself to any place with ease; and that he stood
beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a
supernatural creature, as it was possible he could
have done in any lofty hall.

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit
had in showing off this power of his , or else it was
bis own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sym-

64 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

pathy with all poor men, that led him straight to
Scrooge's clerk's; for there he went, and took Scrooge
with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshold
of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless
Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his
torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen "Bob"
a-week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen
copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of
Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed
out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in
ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for
sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by BeHnda
Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in rib-
bons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into
the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of
his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob's private property, con-
ferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day)
into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly
attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashion-
able Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and
girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's
they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own;
and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion,
these young Cratchits danced about the table, and ex-
alted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not
proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew
the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked
loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.

"What has ever got your precious father then?"
said Mrs. Cratchit. "And your brother. Tiny Tim!
And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-
an-hourl"

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 65

"Here's Martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as
she spoke.

"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young
Cratchits. "Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!"

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late
you are!" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times,
and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with
officious zeal.

"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,"
replied the girl, "and had to clear away this morning,
mother!"

"Well! Never mind so long as you are come,"
said Mrs. Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my
dear, and have a warm. Lord bless ye!"

"No no! There's father coming," cried the two
young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide,
Martha, hide!"

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the
father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive
of the fringe, hanging dow^n before him; and his thread-
bare clothes darned up and brushed, to look season-
able; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny
Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs sup-
ported by an iron frame!

"Why, Where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit,
looking round.

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.

"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension
in his high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse
all the way from church, and had come home rampant.
"Not coming upon Christmas Day!"

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it
were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from

A ChrisUnaf Carol, etc, 5

66 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while
the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore
him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the
pudding singing in the copper.

"And how did little Tom behave?" asked Mrs.
Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity,
and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's
content.

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Some-
how he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much,
and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He
told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw
him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it
might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christ-
mas Day, who made lame beggars walk and blind
men see."

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this,
and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was
growing strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor,
and back came Tiny Tim before another word was
spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool
beside the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs —
as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made
more shabby — compounded some hot mixture in a jug
with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round,
and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter and
the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the
goose, with which they soon returned in high pro-
cession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought
a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered pheno-

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 67

menon, to which a black swan was a matter of course
— and in truth it was something very Hke it in that
house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready before-
hand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter
mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss
Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted
the hot-plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a
tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set
chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and
mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons
into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose
before their turn came to be helped. At last the
dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was suc-
ceeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking
slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge
it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-
expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of
delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny
Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the
table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried
Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't
believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its
tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the
themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-
sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner
for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with
great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone
upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet
every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits
in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the
eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by
Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone — too

5*

68 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

nervous to bear witnesses— to take the pudding up,
and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose
it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody
should have got over the wall of the backyard, and
stolen it, while they were merry with the goose — a
supposition at which the two young Cratchits became
livid ! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was
out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That
was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a
pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's
next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a
minute Mrs. Cratchit entered — flushed, but smiling
proudly — with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-
ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern
of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly
stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and
calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success
achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs.
Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she
would confess she had her doubts about the quantity
of flour. Everybody had something to say about it,
but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pud-
ding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy
to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at
such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was
cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The
compound in the jug being tasted, and considered per-
fect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and
a shovel full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 6^

Cratchlt family drew round the hearth, in what Bob
Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at
Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass.
Two tumblers and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as
well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob
served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts
on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob
proposed:

"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God
bless us!"

Which all the family re-echoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last
of all.

He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little
stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he
loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side,
and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never
felt before, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live."

"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the
poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner,
carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered
by the Future, the child will die,"

"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say
he will be spared."

"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future,
none other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will
find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had
better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted
by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and
grief.

70 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart,
not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have
discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will
you decide what men shall live, what men shall die?
It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more
worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor
man's child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf
pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry
brothers in the dust!"

Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trem-
bling cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised
them speedily, on hearing his own name.

"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob; "I'll give you Mr. Scrooge,
the Founder of the Feast!"

"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs.
Cratchit, reddening. "I wish I had him here. I'd give
him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope
he'd have a good appetite for it."

"My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas
Day."

"It should be Christmas Day, I am sure," said she,
"on which one drinks the health of such an odious,
stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know
he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do,
poor fellow?"

"My dear," was Bob's mild answer. "Christmas
Day."

"I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's,"
said Mrs. Cratchit, "not for his. Long life to him! A
merry Christmas and a happy new year ! He'll be very
merry and very happy, I have no doubt!"

The children drank the toast after her. It was the
first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Jl

Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care two-
pence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The
mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party,
which was not dispelled for full five minutes.

After it had passed away, they were ten times
merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge
the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them
how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter,
which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-six-
pence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tre-
mendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of busi-
ness; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire
from between his collars, as if he were deliberating
what particular investments he should favour when
he came into the receipt of that bewildering income.
Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's, then
told them what kind of work she had to do, and how
many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she
meant to lie a-bed to-morrow morning for a good long
rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home.
Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some
days before, and how the lord "was much about as
tall as Peter;" at which Peter pulled up his collars so
high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had
been there. All this time the chestnuts and the jug
went round and round; and bye and bye they had a
song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from
Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang
it very well indeed.

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were
not a handsome family; they were not well dressed;
their shoes were far from being waterproof; their
clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and

72 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But,
they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another,
and contented with the time; and when they faded,
and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the
Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon
them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

By this time it was getting dark and snowing pretty
heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the
streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens,
parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here,
the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a
cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through
before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn
to shut out cold and darkness. There, all the children
of the house were running out into the snow to meet
their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts,
and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were
shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling;
and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and
fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly
off to some near neighbour's house; where, wo upon
the single man who saw them enter — artful witches,
well they knew it — in a glow!

But, if you had judged from the numbers of people
on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have
thought that no one was at home to give them wel-
come when they got there, instead of every house ex-
pecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney
high. Blessmgs on it, how the Ghost exulted! How
it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious
palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous
hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything
within its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 73

before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light,
and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere,
laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little
kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but
Christmas !

And now, without a w^ord of warning from the
Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor,
where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast
about, as though it were the burial-place of giants;
and water spread itself wheresoever it listed; or would
have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner;
and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse,
rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left
a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation
for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower,
lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of
darkest night.

"What place Is this?" asked Scrooge.

"A place where miners live, who labour in the
bowels of the earth,'* returned the Spirit. "But they
know me. See!"

A light shone from the window of a hut, and
swiftly they advanced tov/ards it. Passing through
the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful
company assembled round a glowing fire. An old,
old man and woman, with their children and their
children's children, and another generation beyond
that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The
old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howl-
ing of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing
them a Christmas song; it had been a very old song
when he was a boy; and from time to time they all
joined in the chorus, So surely as they raised their

74 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so
surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge
hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped
whither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror,
looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful
range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were
deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled, and
roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had
worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some
league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed
and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a
solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to
its base, and storm-birds — born of the wind one might
suppose, as sea-weed of the water — rose and fell about
it, like the waves they skimmed.

But even here, two men who watched the light
had made a fire, that through the loophole in the
thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the
awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough
table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry
Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them: the
elder too, with his face all damaged and scarred with
hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might
be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale in
itself

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and
heaving sea — on, on — until, being far away, as he told
Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They
stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out
in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark,
ghostly figures in their several stations; but every

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 75

man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had
a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his
companion of some by-gone Christmas Day, with
homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on
board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a
kinder word for another on that day than on any day
in the year; and had shared to some extent in its
festivities; and had remembered those he cared for
at a distance, and had known that they delighted to
remember him.

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening
to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a
solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely
darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were
secrets as profound as Death: it was a great surprise
to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh.
It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise
it as his own nephew's, and to find himself in a bright,
dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling
by his side, and looking at that same nephew with
approving affability!

"Ha! ha!" laughed Scrooge's nephew. "Ha, ha,
ha!"

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to
know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's
nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him
too. Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his ac-
quaintance.

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of
things, that while there is infection in disease and
sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly
contagious as laughter and good-humour. When
Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way: holding his

76 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the
most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece, by
marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assem-
bled friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out
lustily.

"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!"
cried Scrooge's nephew. "He believed it too!"

"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece,
indignantly. Bless those women! they never do any-
thing by halves. They are always in earnest.

She was very pretty; exceedingly pretty. With a
dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little
mouth, that seemed made to be kissed — as no doubt
it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin,
that melted into one another when she laughed; and
the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little
creature's head. Altogether she was what you would
have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too.
Oh, perfectly satisfactory.

"He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's nephew,
"that's the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be.
However, his offences carry their own punishment, and
I have nothing to say against him."

"I'm sure he is very rich, Fred," hinted Scrooge's
niece. "At least, you always tell me so."

"What of that, my dear!" said Scrooge's nephew.
"His wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any
good with it. He don't make himself comfortable
with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking — ha,
ha, ha! — that he is ever going to benefit Us with it."

"I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 77

niece. Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other
ladies, expressed the same opinion.

"Oh, I have!" said Scrooge's nephew. "I am
sorry for him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried.
AVho suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always. Here,
he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't
come and dine with us. What's the consequence? He
don't lose much of a dinner."

"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," in-
terrupted Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the
same, and they must be allowed to have been compe-
tent judges, because they had just had dinner; and
with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round
the fire, by lamplight.

"Well! I am very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's
nephew, "because I haven't any great faith in these
young housekeepers. What do you say. Topper?"

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's
niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a
wretched outcast, who had no right to express an
opinion on the subject. W^hereat Scrooge's niece's
sister — the plump one with the lace tucker: not the
one with the roses — blushed.

"Do go on, Fred," said Scrooge's niece, clapping
her hands. "He never finishes what he begins to say!
He is such a ridiculous fellow!"

Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as
it was impossible to keep the infection off; though the
plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar;
his example was unanimously followed.

"I was only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew,
"that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us,
and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he

78 A CHRISTMAS CAROL,

loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no
harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than
he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy
old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him
the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not,
for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies,
but he can't help thinking better of it — I defy him —
if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after
year, and saying, * Uncle Scrooge, how are you?' If
it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk
fifty pounds, thafs something; and I think I shook
him, yesterday."

It was their turn to laugh now, at the notion of his
shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured,
and not much caring what they laughed at, so that
they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their
merriment, and passed the bottle, joyously.

After tea, they had some music. For they were a
musical family, and knew what they were about, when
they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you : especially
Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good
one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or
get red in the face over it. Scrooge's niece played well
upon the harp; and played among other tunes a
simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to
whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to
the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-
school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of
Christmas Past. "When this strain of music sounded,
all the things that Ghost had shown him, came upon
his mind; he softened more and more; and thought
that if he could have listened to it often, years ago,
he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 79

own happiness with his own hands, without resorting
to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley.

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music.
After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to
be children sometimes, and never better than at
Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child him-
self. Stop! There was first a game at blind-man's
buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe
Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in
his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing
between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the
Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he
went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an
outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking
down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping
up against the piano, smothering himself amongst the
curtains, wherever she went, there went he ! He always
knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch
anybody else. If you had fallen up against him, (as
some of them did) on purpose, he would have made
a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would
have been an affront to your understanding, and would
instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump
sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it
really was not. But when at last, he caught her; when,
in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid
flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence
there was no escape; then his conduct was the most
execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his
pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-
dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by
pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain
chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No doubt

80 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

she told him her opinion of it, when, another blind-
man being in office, they were so very confidential
together, behind the curtains.

Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's
buff party, but was made comfortable with a large
chair and footstool, in a snug corner, where the Ghost
and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined
in the forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with
all the letters of the alphabet. Likewise at the game
of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and,
to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters
hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as Topper
could have told you. There might have been twenty
people there, young and old, but they all played, and
so did Scrooge; for, wholly forgetting in the interest
he had in what was going on, that his voice made no
sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his
guess quite loud, and very often guessed right, too;
for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted
not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge;
blunt as he took it in his head to be.

The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this
mood, and looked upon him with such favour, that
he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the
guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be
done.

"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half
hour. Spirit, only one!"

It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's
nephew had to think of something, and the rest must
find out what; he only answering to their questions
yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of question-
ing to which he was exposed, elicited from him that

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 8l

he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a
disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that
growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes,
and lived in London, and walked about the streets,
and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by any-
body, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was never
killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or
a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a
cat, or a bear. At every fresh question that was put
to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laugh-
ter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was
obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the
plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:

"I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I
know what it is!"

"What is it?" cried Fred.

"It's your uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!"

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the uni-
versal sentiment, though some objected that the reply
to "Is it a bear?" ought to have been "Yes;" inas-
much as an answer in the negative was sufficient to
have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, sup-
posing they had ever had any tendency that way.

"He has given us plenty of merriment, I am
sure," said Fred, "and it would be ungrateful not to
drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine
ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, 'Uncle
Scrooge!'"

"Well! Uncle Scrooge!" they cried.

"A Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to the
old man, whatever he is!" said Scrooge's nephew.
"He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it,
nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!"

A Christmas Carol, etc, V

82 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay
and light of heart, that he would have pledged the
unconscious company in return, and thanked them in
an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time.
But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the
last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the
Spirit were again upon their travels.

Much they saw, and far they went and many
homes they visited, but always with a happy end.
The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were
cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at
home; by struggling men, and they were patient in
their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In
almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge,
where vain man in his little brief authority had not
made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left
his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.

It was a long night, if it were only a night; but
Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas
Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of
time they passed together. It was strange, too, that
while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form,
the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had
observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they
left a children's Twelfth Night party, when, looking at
the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he
noticed that its hair was gray.

"Are spirits' lives so short?" asked Scrooge.

"My life upon this globe is very brief," replied the
Ghost. "It ends to-night."

"To-night!" cried Scrooge.

"To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is draw-

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 83

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past
eleven at that moment.

"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,"
said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe,
"but I see something strange, and not belonging to
yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or
a claw?"

"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,"
was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here."

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two chil-
dren; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable.
They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the out-
side of its garment.

"Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!"
exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre,
ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their
humility. Where graceful youth should have filled
their features out, and touched them with its freshest
tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had
pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into
shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, de-
vils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no
degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade,
through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has
monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them
shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were
fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather
than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

"Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no
more.

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down

6*

84 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from
their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is
Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree,
but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see
that written which is Doom, unless the writing be
erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its
hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye!
Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it
worse! And bide the end!"

"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.

"Are there no prisons!" said the Spirit, turning on
him for the last time with his own words. "Are there
no workhouses?"

The bell struck twelve.

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw
it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he re-
membered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and
lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped
and hooded coming, like a mist along the ground, to-
wards him.

STAVE IV.

The Last of the Spirits.

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached.
When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his
knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit
moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which
concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing
of it visible, save one outstretched hand. But for this
it would have been difficult to detach its figure from

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 85

the night, and separate it from the darkness by which
it was surrounded.

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came
beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him
with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the
Spirit neither spoke nor moved.

"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas
Yet To Come?" said Scrooge.

The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with
its hand.

"You are about to show me shadows of the things
that have not happened, but will happen in the time
before us," Scrooge pursued. "Is that so, Spirit?"

The upper portion of the garment was contracted
for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined
its head. That was the only answer he received.

Although well used to ghostly company by this
time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his
legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he
could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it.
The Spirit paused a moment, as observing his condi-
tion, and giving him time to recover.

But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled
him with a vague uncertain horror, to know that be-
hind the dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes in-
tently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched
his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spec-
tral hand and one great heap of black.

"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you
more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know
your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live
to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to

86 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart.
Will you not speak to me?"

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed
straight before them.

"Lead on!" said Scrooge. "Lead on! The night
is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know.
Lead on, Spirit!"

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards
him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress,
which bore him up, he thought, and carried him
along.

They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the
city rather seemed to spring up about them, and en-
compass them of its own act. But there they were
in the heart of it; on 'Change, amongst the mer-
chants; who hurried up and down, and chinked the
money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and
looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with
their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had
seen them often.

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of busi-
ness men. Observing that the hand was pointed to
them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk.

"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin,
"I don't know much about it either way. I only know
he's dead."

"When did he die?" inquired another.

"Last night, I believe."

"Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a
third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very
large snuff-box. "I thought he'd never die."

"God knows," said the first with a yawn.

"What has he done with his money?" asked a red-

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 87

faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the
end of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-
cock.

"I haven't heard," said the man with the large
chin, yawning again. "Left it to his company, per-
haps. He hasn't left it to me. That's all I know."

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.

"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the
same speaker; "for upon my life I don't know of any-
body to go to it. Suppose we make up a party and
volunteer?"

"I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," ob-
served the gentleman with the excrescence on his
nose. "But I must be fed, if I make one."

Another laugh.

"Well, I am the most disinterested among you,
after all," said the first speaker, "for I never wear
black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to
go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of
it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his most particular
friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we
met. Bye, bye!"

Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed
with other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked
towards the Spirit for an explanation.

The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger
pointed to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened
again, thinking that the explanation might lie here.

He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were
men of business: very wealthy, and of great import-
ance. He had made a point always of standing well
in their esteem: in a business point of view, that is;
strictly in a business point of view.

SB A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

"How are you?" said one.

"How are you?" returned the other.

"Well!'' said the first. "Old Scratch has got his
own at last, hey?"

"So I am told," returned the second. "Cold,
isn't it!"

"Seasonable for Christmas time. You are not a
skater, I suppose?"

"No. No. Something else to think of. Good
morning!"

Not another word. That was their meeting, their
conversation, and their parting.

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that
the Spirit should attach importance to conversations
apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that they
must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to con-
sider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely
be supposed to have any bearing on the death of
Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this
Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think
of any one immediately connected with himself, to
whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting
that to whomsoever they apphed they had some latent
moral for his own improvement, he resolved to trea-
sure up every word he heard, and everything he saw;
and especially to observe the shadow of himself when
it appeared. For he had an expectation that the con-
duct of his future self would give him the clue he
missed, and would render the solution of these riddles
easy.

He looked about in that very place for his own
image; but another man stood in his accustomed corner,
and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 89

for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among
the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It
gave him little surprise, however; for he had been re-
volving in his mind a change of life, and thought and
hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out
in this.

Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom,
with its outstretched hand. When he roused himself
from his thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of
the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that
the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made
him shudder, and feel very cold.

They left the busy scene, and went into an ob-
scure part of the town, where Scrooge had never
penetrated before, although he recognised its situation,
and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow;
the shops and houses wretched; the people half-naked,
drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so
many cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell, and
dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the whole
quarter reeked with crime, with filth and misery.

Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-
browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where
iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were
bought. Upon the floor within, were piled up heaps
of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights,
and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would
like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains
of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres
of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by
a charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired
rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had screened
himself from the cold air without, by a frousy curtain-

go A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

ing of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line; and
smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.

Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence
of this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle
slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely entered,
when another woman, similarly laden, came in too;
and she was closely followed by a man in faded black,
who was no less startled by the sight of them, than
they had been upon the recognition of each other.
After a short period of blank astonishment, in which
the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all
three burst into a laugh.

"Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried
she who had entered first. "Let the laundress alone
to be the second; and let the undertaker's man alone
to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a chance!
If we haven't all three met here without meaning it!"

"You couldn't have met in a better place," said
old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. "Come
into the parlour. You were made free of it long ago,
you know; and the other two an't strangers. Stop till
I shut the door of the shop. Ah! How it skreeks!
There an't such a rusty bit of metal in the place as
its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's no such
old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We're all suitable
to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the
parlour. Come into the parlour."

The parlour was the space behind the screen of
rags. The old man raked the fire together with an old
stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it
was night), with the stem of his pipe, put it into his
mouth again.

While he did this, the woman who had already

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. QI

spoken threw her bundle on the floor and sat down in
a flaunting manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on
her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the
other two.

"What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber?" said
the woman. "Every person has a right to take care of
tliemselves. He always did!"

"That's true, indeed!" said the laundress. "No
man more so."

"Why then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid,
woman; who's the wiser? We're not going to pick holes
in each other's coats, I suppose?"

"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man to-
gether. "We should hope not."

"Very well, then!" cried the woman. "That's
enough. Who's the worse for the loss of a few things
like these? Not a dead man, I suppose."

"No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.

"If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a
wicked old screw," pursued the woman, "why wasn't
he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have
had somebody to look after him when he was struck
with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there,
alone by himself."

"It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs.
Dilber. "It's a judgment on him."

"I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied
the woman; "and it should have been, you may depend
upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything
else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the
value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the
first, nor afraid for them to see it. We knew pretty

92 A CHRISTMAS CAROL,

well that we were helping ourselves, before we met
here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe."

But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of
this; and the man in faded black, mounting the breach
first, produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A
seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve buttons, and
a brooch of no great value, were all. They were seve-
rally examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked
the sums he was disposed to give for each, upon the
wall, and added them up into a total when he found
that there was nothing more to come.

"That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't
give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not
doing it. Who's next?"

Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little
wearing apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a
pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account
was stated on the wall in the same manner.

"I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness
of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself," said old
Joe. "That's your account. If you asked me for an-
other penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent
of being so liberal, and knock off half-a-crown."

"And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first
woman.

Joe went down on his knees for the greater con-
venience of opening it, and having unfastened a great
many knots, dragged out a large heavy roll of some
dark stuff.

"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains!"

"Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning
forward on her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains!"

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 93

"You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings
and all, with him lying there?" said Joe.

"Yes I do," replied the woman. "Why not?"

"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe,
"and you'll certainly do it."

"I certainly sha'n't hold my hand, when I can get
anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such
a man as He was, I promise you, Joe," returned the
woman coolly. "Don't drop that oil upon the blankets,
now."

"His blankets?" asked Joe.

"Whose else's do you think?" replied the woman.
"He isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare
say."

"I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?"
said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.

"Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman.
"I an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about
him for such things, if he did. Ah! You may look
through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't
find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best
he had, and a fine one too. They'd have wasted it, if
it hadn't been for me."

"What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe.

"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,"
replied the woman with a laugh. " Somebody was fool
enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't
good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough
for anything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He
can't look uglier than he did in that one."

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they
sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded
by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detesta-

94 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

tion and disgust, which could hardly have been greater,
though they had been obscene demons, marketing the
corpse itself.

"Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman, when old Joe
producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out
their several gains upon the ground. "This is the end
of it, you see? He frightened every one away from
him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead !
Ha, ha, ha!"

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to
foot. "I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man
might be my own. My life tends that way, now.
Merciful Heaven, what is this!"

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed,
and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained
bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a
something covered up, which, though it was dumb,
announced itself in awful language.

The room was very dark, too dark to be observed
with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in
obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what
kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer
air, fell straight upon the bed: and on it, plundered
and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the
body of this man.

Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady
hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so
carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the
motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have
disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it
would be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more
power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre
at his side.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 95

Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine
altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast
at thy command: for this is thy dominion! But of the
loved, revered, and honoured head, thou canst not
turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one
feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and
will fall down when released; it is not that the heart
and pulse are still; but that the hand was open,
generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender;
and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike! And
see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow
the world with life immortal!

No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears,
and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed.
He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what
would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard-deal-
ing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich
end, truly?

He lay, in the dark, empty house, with not a man,
a woman, or a child, to say he was kind to me in this
or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will
be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and
there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-
stone. What they wanted in the room of death, and
why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did
not dare to think.

"Spirit!" he said, "this is a fearful place. In
leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let
us go!"

Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to
the head.

"I understand you," Scrooge returned, "and I would

96 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

do it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I
have not the power."

Again it seemed to look upon him.

"If there is any person in the town, who feels emo-
tion caused by this man's death," said Scrooge, quite
agonised, "show that person to me, Spirit, I "beseech
you!"

The phantom spread its dark robe before him for
a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a
room by daylight, where a mother and her children
were.

She was expecting some one, and with anxious
eagerness; for she walked up and down the room;
started at every sound; looked out from the window;
glanced at the clock; tried, but in vain, to work with
her needle; and could hardly bear the voices of her
children in their play.

At length the long-expected knock was heard. She
hurried to the door, and met her husband; a man
whose face was care-worn and depressed, though he
was young. There was a remarkable expression in it
now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed,
and which he struggled to repress.

He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding
for him by the fire, and when she asked him faintly
what news (which was not until after a long silence),
he appeared embarrassed how to answer.

"Is it good," she said, "or bad?" — to help him.

"Bad," he answered.

"We are quite ruined?"

"No. There is hope yet, Caroline."

"If he relents," she said, amazed, "there is!
Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened."

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 97

"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is
dead."

She was a mild and patient creature, if her face
spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear
it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed
forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the
first was the emotion of her heart.

"What the half-drunken woman, whom I told you
of last night, said to me, when I tried to see him and
obtain a week's delay; and what I thought was a mere
excuse to avoid me; turns out to have been quite true.
He was not only very ill, but dying, then."

"To whom will our debt be transferred?"

"I don't know. But before that time we shall be
ready with the money; and even though we were not,
it would be bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a
creditor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with
light hearts, Caroline!"

Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were
lighter. The children's faces, hushed and clustered
round to hear what they so little understood, were
brighter; and it was a happier house for this man's
death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show
him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure.

"Let me see some tenderness connected with a
death," said Scrooge; "or that dark chamber. Spirit,
which we left just now, will be for ever present to me."

The Ghost conducted him through several streets
familiar to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge
looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere
was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's
house; the dwelling he had visited before; and found
the mother and the children seated round the fire,

A Christmas Carol , etc. 7

gS A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were
as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at
Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and
her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely
they were very quiet!

" 'And he took a child, and set him in the midst
of them.' "

Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had
not dreamed them. The boy must have read them
out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why
did he not go on?

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put
her hand up to her face.

"The colour hurts my eyes," she said.

The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!

"They're better now again," said Cratchit's wife.
"It makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't
show weak eyes to your father when he comes home,
for the world. It must be near his time."

"Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his
book. "But I think he has walked a little slower than
he used, these few last evenings, mother."

They were very quiet again. At last she said, and
in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once:

"I have known him walk with — I have known him
walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast in-
deed."

"And so have I," cried Peter. "Often."

"And so have I," exclaimed another. So had all.

"But he was very light to carry," she resumed,
intent upon her work, " and his father loved him so,
that it was no trouble: no trouble. And there is your
father at the door!"

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. QQ

She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his
comforter — he had need of it, poor fellow — came in.
His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all
tried who should help him to it most. Then the two
young Cratchits got upon his knees and laid, each
child, a little cheek against his face, as if they said
"Don't mind it, father. Don't be grieved!"

Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke plea-
santly to all the family. He looked at the work upon
the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs.
Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long be-
fore Sunday, he said.

"Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?" said
his wife.

"Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could
have gone. It would have done you good to see how
green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I pro-
mised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My
little, little child!" cried Bob. "My little child!"

He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it.
If he could have helped it, he and his child would
have been farther apart perhaps than they were.

He left the room, and went up stairs into the room
above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with
Christmas. There was a chair set close beside the
child, and there were signs of some one having been
there, lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he
had thought a little and composed himself, he kissed
the little face. He was reconciled to what had hap-
pened, and went down again quite happy.

They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and
mother working still. Bob told them of the extraor-
dinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he

7*

100 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in
the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little
— "just a little down you know," said Bob, enquired
what had happened to distress him. "On which,"
said Bob, "for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman
you ever heard, I told him. 'I am heartily sorry for
it, Mr. Cratchit,' he said, 'and heartily sorry for your
good wife.' By the bye, how he ever knew thaty I don't
know."

"Knew what, my dear?"

"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob.

"Everybody knows that!" said Peter.

"Very well observed, my boy!" cried Bob. "I
hope they do. * Heartily sorry,' he said, 'for your
good wife. If I can be of service to you in any way,'
he said, giving me his card, 'that's where I live. Pray
come to me.' Now, it wasn't," cried Bob, "for the
sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so
much as for his kind way, that this was quite delight-
ful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny
Tim, and felt with us."

"I'm sure he's a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit.

"You would be surer of it, my dear," returned Bob,
"if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all
surprised — mark what I say! — if he got Peter a better
situation."

"Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit.

"And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be
keeping company with some one, and setting up for
himself."

"Get along with you!" retorted Peter, grinning.

"It's just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these
days; though there's plenty of time for that, my dear.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. lOI

But however and whenever we part from one another,
I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim
— shall we — or this first parting that there was among
us?" ■ - •■

"Never, father!" cried they all.

"And I know," said Bob, "1 1-novv, my dears, that
when we recollect how patient and how mild he was;
although he was a little, little child; we shall not
quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny
Tim in doing it."

"No, never, father!" they all cried again.

"I am very happy," said little Bob, "I am very
happy!"

Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him,
the two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and
himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish
essence was from God!

"Spectre," said Scrooge, "something informs me
that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I
know not how. Tell me what man that was whom
we saw lying dead?"

The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed
him, as before — though at a different time, he thought:
indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions,
save that they were in the Future — into the resorts of
business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed,
the Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight
on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by
Scrooge to tarry for a moment.

"This court," said Scrooge, "through which we
hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has
been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me
behold what I shall be, in days to come!"

102 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed else-
where.

"The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. "Why
do you point away?"

The inexorable finger underwent no change.

Scrooge hastened Lo the window of his office, and
looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The
furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair
was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before.

He joined it once again, and wondering why and
whither he had gone, accompanied it until they
reached an iron gate. He paused to look round be-
fore entering.

A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose
name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground.
It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun
by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death,
not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with
repleted appetite. A worthy place!

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed
down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The
Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded
that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you
point," said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are
these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are
they shadows of the things that May be, only?"

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by
which it stood.

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to
which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge.
"But if the courses be departed from, the ends will
change. Say it is thus with what you show me!"

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. IO3

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went;
and following the finger, read upon the stone of the
neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge.

"Am /that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried,
upon his knees.

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and
back again.

"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!"

The finger still was there.

"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear
me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man
I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show
me this, if I am past all hope!"

For the first time the hand appeared to shake.

"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the
ground he fell before it: "Your nature intercedes for
me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change
these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life?'*

The kind hand trembled.

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to
keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present,
and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive
within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they
teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on
this stone!"

In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It
sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty,
and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.

Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his
fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's
hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled
down into a bedpost.

104 ^ CHRISTMAS CAROL.

STAVE V.

The End of it.

Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was
his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of
all, the Time before him was his own, to make
amends in!

"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the
Future!" Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of
bed. "The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.
Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time
be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob;
on my knees!"

He was so fluttered and so glowing with good
intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer
to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his
conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with
tears.

"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding
one of his bed-curtains in his arms, "they are not
torn down, rings and all. They are here — I am here
— the shadows of the things that would have been,
may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will!"

His hands were busy with his garments all this
time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside
down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them
parties to every kind of extravagance.

"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing
and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect
Laocoon of himself with his stockings. ,"I am as light
as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry
as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. I05

A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year
to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!"

He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now
standing there: perfectly winded.

"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried
Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fire-
place. "There's the door by which the Ghost of Jacob
Marley entered! There's the corner where the Ghost
of Christmas Present sat! There's the window where I
saw the wandering Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it
all happened. Ha ha ha!"

Really, for a man who had been out of practice
for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most
illustrious laugh. The father of a long , long line of
brilliant laughs!

"I don't know what day of the month it is," said
Scrooge. "I don't know how long I have been among
the Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby.
Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby.
Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!"

He was checked in his transports by the churches
ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard.
Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong,
ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out
his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring,
cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden
sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells.
Oh, glorious. Glorious!

"What's to-day?" cried Scrooge, calling downward
to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered
in to look about him.

"Eh?" returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

I06 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

"What's to-day, my fine fellow?" said Scrooge.

"To-day," replied the boy. "Why, Christmas
Day."

"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I
haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one
night. They can do anything they like. Of course
they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine
fellow!"

"Hallo!" returned the boy.

"Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street
but one, at the corner?" Scrooge inquired.

"I should hope I did," replied the lad.

"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remark-
able boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize
Turkey that was hanging up there? — Not the little
prize Turkey: the big one?"

"What, the one as big as me?" returned the boy.

"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It's a
pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!"

"It's hanging there now," replied the boy.

"Is it?" said Scrooge. "Go and buy it."

"Walk-ER!" exclaimed the boy.

"No, no," said Scrooge, "I am in earnest. Go and
buy it, and tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give
them the directions where to take it. Come back with
the man, and I'll give you a shilling. Come back with
him in less than five minutes, and I'll give you half-a-
crown!"

The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a
steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot
off half so fast.

"I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's," whispered Scrooge,
rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. "He

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. IO7

sha'n't know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny
Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending
it to Bob's will be!"

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a
steady one; but write it he did, somehow, and went
down stairs to open the street door, ready for the
coming of the poulterer's man. As he stood there,
waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye.

"I shall love it as long as I live!" cried Scrooge,
patting it with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at
it before. What an honest expression it has in its face !
It's a wonderful knocker! — Here's the Turkey. Hallo!
Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!"

It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon
his legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short
off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

"Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden
Town," said Scrooge. "You must have a cab."

The chuckle with which he said this, and the
chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey, and the
chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle
with which he recompensed the boy, were only to
be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down
breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he
cried.

Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand con-
tinued to shake very much; and shaving requires atten-
tion, even when you don't dance while you are at it. But
if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put
a piece of sticking-plaister over it, and been quite
satisfied.

He dressed himself "all in his best," and at last
got out into the streets. The people were by this time

I08 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of
Christmas Present; and walking with his hands behind
him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted
smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word,
that three or four good-humoured fellows said "Good
morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!" And
Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe
sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in
his ears.

He had not gone far, when coming on towards him
he beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into
his counting-house the day before, and said "Scrooge
and Marley's, I believe?" It sent a pang across his
heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon
him when they met; but he knew what path lay straight
before him, and he took it.

"My dear sir," said Scrooge, quickening his pace,
and taking the old gentleman by both his hands.
"How do you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday.
It was very kind of you. A merry Christmas to you,
sir!"

"Mr. Scrooge?"

"Yes," said Scrooge. "That is my name, and I
fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask
your pardon. And will you have the goodness" — here
Scrooge whispered in his ear.

"Lord bless me!" cried the gentleman, as if his
breath were taken away. "My dear Mr. Scrooge, are
you serious?"

"If you please," said Scrooge. "Not a farthing less.
A great many back-payments are included in it, I
assure you. Will you do me that favour?"

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. IO9

"My dear sir," said the other, shaking hands with
him. "I don't know what to say to such munifi — "

"Don't say anything, please," retorted Scrooge.
"Come and see me. Will you come and see me?"

"I will!" cried the old gentleman. And it was
clear he meant to do it.

"Thank'ee," said Scrooge. "I am much obliged
to you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you!"

He went to church, and walked about the streets
and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and
patted the children on the head, and questioned beg-
gars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses,
and up to the windows; and found that everything
could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that
any walk — that any thing — could give him so much
happiness. In the afternoon, he turned his steps
towards his nephew's house.

He passed the door a dozen times, before he had
the courage to go up and knock. But he made a
dash, and did it:

"Is your master at home, my dear?" said Scrooge
to the girl. Nice girl! Very.

"Yes, sir."

"Where is he, my love?" said Scrooge.

"He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress.
I'll show you up stairs, if you please."

"Thank'ee. He knows me," said Scrooge, with his
hand already on the dining-room lock. "I'll go in
here, my dear."

He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round
the door. They were looking at the table (which was
spread out in great array); for these young house-

no A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

keepers are always nervous on such points, and like
to see that everything is right.

"Fred!" said Scrooge.

Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started!
Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sit-
ting in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't
have done it, on any account.

"Why bless my soul!" cried Fred, "who's that?"

"It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to
dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?"

Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm
off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could
be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did
Topper when he came. So did the plump sister, when
she came. So did every one when they came. Won-
derful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity,
won-der-ful happiness!

P But he was early at the office next morning. Oh
he was early there. If he could only be there first,
and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the
thing he had set his heart upon.

And he did it; yes he did! The clock struck nine.
No Bob. A quarter-past. No Bob. He was full eigh-
teen minutes and a half, behind his time. Scrooge sat
with his door wide open, that he might see him come
into the Tank.

His hat was off, before he opened the door; his
comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving
away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake
nine o'clock.

"Hallo!" growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice
as near as he could feign it. "What do you mean by
coming here at this time of day?"

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 1 1 I

"I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. "I am behind
my time."

"You are!" repeated Scrooge. "Yes. I think you
are. Step this way, sir, if you please."

"It's only once a year, sir," pleaded Bob, appear-
ing from the Tank. "It shall not be repeated. I was
making rather merry yesterday, sir."

"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge,
"I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer.
And therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool,
and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he
staggered back into the Tank again: "and therefore I
am about to raise your salary!"

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler.
He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down
with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the
court for help and a strait-waistcoat.

"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an
earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped
him on the back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my
good fellow, than I have given you for many a year!
I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your
struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this
very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking
bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another
coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!"

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all,
and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not
die, he was a second father. He became as good a
friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the
good old city knew, or any other good old city, town,
or borough, in the good old world. Some people
laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them

112 A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough
to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for
good, at which some people did not have their fill of
laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as
these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as
well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins,
as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own
heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but
lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle ever after-
wards; and it was always said of him, that he knew
how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive pos-
sessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us,
and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God
bless Us, Every One!

END OF "A CHRISTMAS CAROL/

THE CHIMES:

A GOBLIN STORY

SOME BELLS THAT RANG AN OLD YEAR OUT
AND A NEW YEAR IN.

A Chrixtma^ Carol, etc.

THE CHIMES.

FIRST QUARTER.

There are not many people — and as it is desirable
that a story-teller and a story-reader should establish
a mutual understanding as soon as possible, I beg it
to be noticed that I confine this observation neither to
young people nor to little people, but extend it to all
conditions of people: little and big, young and old:
yet growing up, or already growing down again — there
are not, I say, many people who would care to sleep
in a church. I don't mean at sermon-time in warm
weather (when the thing has actually been done, once
or twice), but in the night, and alone. A great multi-
tude of persons will be violently astonished, I know,
by this position, in the broad bold Day. But it ap-
plies to Night. It must be argued by night. And I
will undertake to maintain it successfully on any gusty
winter's night appointed for the purpose, with any one
opponent chosen from the rest, who will meet me
singly in an old churchyard, before an old church
door; and will previously empower me to lock him in,
if needful to his satisfaction, until morning.

For the night- wind has a dismal trick of wandering
round and round a building of that sort, and moaning
as it goes; and of trying, with its unseen hand, the

8*

n6 THE CHIMES.

windows and the doors; and seeking out some crevices
by which to enter. And when it has got in; as one
not finding what it seeks, whatever that may be, it
wails and howls to issue forth again: and not content
with stalking through the aisles, and gliding round
and round the pillars, and tempting the deep organ,
soars up to the roof, and strives to rend the rafters:
then flings itself despairingly upon the stones below,
and passes, muttering, into the vaults. Anon, it comes
up stealthily, and creeps along the walls, seeming to
read, in whispers, the Inscriptions sacred to the Dead.
At some of these, it breaks out shrilly, as with laughter;
and at others, moans and cries as if it were lamenting.
It has a ghostly sound too, lingering within the altar;
where it seems to chaunt, in its wild way, of Wrong
and Murder done, and false Gods worshipped, in
defiance of the Tables of the Law, which look so fair
and smooth, but are so flawed and broken. Ugh!
Heaven preserve us, sitting snugly round the fire! It
has an awful voice, that wind at Midnight, singing in
a church!

But, high up in the steeple! There the foul blast
roars and whistles! High up in the steeple, where it
is free to come and go through many an airy arch
and loophole, and to twist and twine itself about the
giddy stair, and twirl the groaning weathercock, and
make the very tower shake and shiver! High up in
the steeple, where the belfry is, and iron rails are
ragged with rust, and sheets of lead and copper,
shrivelled by the changing weather, crackle and heave
beneath the unaccustomed tread; and birds stuff shabby
nests into corners of old oaken joists and beams; and
dust grows old and grey; and speckled spiders, in-

THE CHIMES. 1 1 "J

dolent and fat with long security, swing idly to and
fro in the vibration of the bells, and never loose their
hold upon their thread-spun castles in the air, or
climb up sailor-like in quick alarm, or drop upon the
ground and ply a score of nimble legs to save one
life! High up in the steeple of an old church, far
above the light and murmur of the town and far
below the flying clouds that shadow it, is the wild and
dreary place at night: and high up in the steeple of
an old church, dwelt the Chimes I tell of^

They were old Chimes, trust me. Centuries ago,
these Bells had been baptised by bishops: so many
centuries ago, that the register of their baptism was
lost long, long before the memory of man, and no one
knew their names. They had had their Godfathers
and Godmothers, these Bells (for my own part, by the
way, I would rather incur the responsibility of being
Godfather to a Bell than a Boy), and had had their
silver mugs no doubt, besides. But Time had mowed
down their sponsors, and Henry the Eighth had
melted down their mugs; and they now hung, name-
less and mugless, in the church tower.

Not speechless, though. Far from it. They had
clear, loud, lusty, sounding voices, had these Bells;
and far and wide they might be heard upon the wind.
Much too sturdy Chimes were they, to be dependent
on the pleasure of the wind, moreover; for, fighting
gallantly against it when it took an adverse whim,
they would pour their cheerful notes into a listening
ear right royally; and bent on being heard, on stormy
nights, by some poor mother watching a sick child, or
some lone wife whose husband was at sea, they had
been sometimes known to beat a blustering Nor'

I 1 8 THE CHIMES.

Wester; aye, "all to fits," as Toby Veck said; — for
though they chose to call him Trotty Veck, his name
was Toby, and nobody could make it anything else
either (except Tobias) without a special act of parlia-
ment; he having been as lawfully christened in his
day as the Bells had been in theirs, though with not
quite so much of solemnity or public rejoicing.

For my part, I confess myself of Toby Veck's
belief, for I am sure he had opportunities enough of
forming a correct one. And whatever Toby Veck
said, I say. And I take my stand by Toby Veck,
although he did stand all day long (and weary work
it was) just outside the church-door. In fact, he was
a ticket-porter, Toby Veck, and waited there for jobs.

And a breezy, goose-skinned, blue-nosed, red-eyed,
stony-toed, tooth-chattering place it was, to wait in,
in the winter-time, as Toby Veck well knew. The
wind came tearing round the corner — especially the
east wind — as if it had sallied forth, express, from
the confines of the earth, to have a blow at Toby.
And oftentimes it seemed to come upon him sooner
than it had expected, for bouncing round the corner,
and passing Toby, it would suddenly wheel round
again, as if it cried "Why, here he is!" Inconti-
nently his little white apron would be caught up over
his head like a naughty boy's garments, and his feeble
little cane would be seen to wrestle and struggle un-
availingly in his hand, and his legs would undergo
tremendous agitation, and Toby himself all aslant, and
facing now in this direction, now in that, would be so
banged and buffeted, and touzled, and worried, and
hustled, and lifted off his feet, as to render it a state
of things but one degree removed from a positive

THE CHIMES. II9

miracle, that he wasn't carried up bodily into the air
as a colony of frogs or snails or other very portable
creatures sometimes are, and rained down again, to
the great astonishment of the natives, on some strange
corner of the world where ticket-porters are unknown.

But, windy weather, in spite of its using him so
roughly, was, after all, a sort of holiday for Toby.
That's the fact. He didn't seem to wait so long for a
sixpence in the wind, as at other times; the having to
fight with that boisterous element took off his atten-
tion, and quite freshened him up, when he was getting
hungry and low spirited. A hard frost too, or a fall
of snow, was an Event; and it seemed to do him good,
somehow or other — it would have been hard to say in
what respect though, Toby! So wind and frost and
snow, and perhaps a good stiff storm of hail, were
Toby Veck's red-letter days.

Wet weather was the worst; the cold, damp, clammy
wet, that wrapped him up like a moist great-coat —
the only kind of great-coat Toby owned, or could
have added to his comfort by dispensing with. Wet
days, when the rain came slowly, thickly, obstinately
down; when the street's throat, like his own, was
choked with mist; when smoking umbrellas passed
and re-passed, spinning round and round like so many
teetotums, as they knocked against each other on the
crowded footway, throwing off a little whirlpool of
uncomfortable sprinklings; when gutters brawled and
water-spouts were full and noisy; when the wet from
the projecting stones and ledges of the church fell
drip, drip, drip, on Toby, making the wisp of straw on
which he stood mere mud in no time; those were the
days that tried him. Then indeed, you might see Toby

120 THE CHIMES.

looking anxiously out from his shelter in an angle of
the church wall — such a meagre shelter that in sum-
mer time it never cast a shadow thicker than a good-
sized walking-stick upon the sunny pavement — with
a disconsolate and lengthened face. But coming out
a minute afterwards, to warm himself by exercise, and
trotting up and down some dozen times, he would
brighten even then, and go back more brightly to his
niche.

They called him Trotty from his pace, which meant
speed if it didn't make it. He could have Walked
faster perhaps; most likely; but rob him of his trot,
and Toby would have taken to his bed and died. It
bespattered him with mud in dirty weather; it cost
him a world of trouble; he could have walked with
infinitely greater ease; but that was one reason for
his clinging to it so tenaciously. A weak, small,
spare old man, he was a very Hercules, this Toby, in
his good intentions. He loved to earn his money.
He delighted to believe — Toby was very poor, and
couldn't well afford to part with a delight — that he
was worth his salt. With a shilling or an eighteen-
penny message or small parcel in hand, his courage,
always high, rose higher. As he trotted on, he would
call out to fast Postmen ahead of him, to get out of
the way; devoutly believing that in the natural course
of things he must inevitably overtake and run them
down; and he had perfect faith — not often tested —
in his being able to carry anything that man could
lift.

Thus, even when he came out of his nook to warm
himself on a wet day, Toby trotted. Making, with
his leaky shoes, a crooked line of slushy footprints in

THE CHIMES. 121

the mire; and blowing on his chilly hands and rubbing
them against each other, poorly defended from the
searching cold by threadbare mufflers of grey worsted,
with a private apartment only for the thumb, and a
common room or tap for the rest of the fingers;
Toby, with his knees bent and his cane beneath his
arm, still trotted. Falling out into the road to look
up at the belfry when the Chimes resounded, Toby
trotted still.

He made this last excursion several times a day,
for they were company to him; and when he heard
their voices, he had an interest in glancing at their
lodging-place, and thinking how they were moved, and
what hammers beat upon them. Perhaps he was the
more curious about these Bells, because there were
points of resemblance between themselves and him.
They hung there, in all weathers, with the wind and
rain driving in upon them; facing only the outsides
of all those houses; never getting any nearer to the
blazing fires that gleamed and shone upon the win-
dows, or came puffing out of the chimney tops; and
incapable of participation in any of the good things
that were constantly being handed, through the street
doors and the area railings, to prodigious cooks.
Faces came and went at many windows: sometimes
pretty faces, youthful faces, pleasant faces: sometimes
the reverse: but Toby knew no more (though he often
speculated on these trifles, standing idle in the streets)
whence they came, or where they went, or whether,
v/hen the lips moved, one kind word was said of him
in all the year, than did the Chimes themselves.

Toby was not a casuist — that he knew of, at least
-—and I don't mean to say that when he began to take

122 THE CHIMES.

to the Bells, and to knit up his first rough acquaint-
ance with them into something of a closer and more
delicate woof, he passed through these considerations
one by one, or held any formal review or great field-
day in his thoughts. But what I mean to say, and
do say is, that as the functions of Toby's body, his
digestive organs for example, did of their own cunning,
and by a great many operations of which he was
altogether ignorant, and the knowledge of which would
have astonished him very much, arrive at a certain
end; so his mental faculties, without his privity or
concurrence, set all these wheels and springs in mo-
tion, with a thousand others, when they worked to
bring about his liking for the Bells.

And though I had said his love, I would not have
recalled the word, though it would scarcely have ex-
pressed his complicated feeling. For, being but a
simple man, he invested them with a strange and
solemn character. They were so mysterious, often
heard and never seen; so high up, so far off, so full
of such a deep strong melody, that he regarded them
with a species of awe; and sometimes when he looked
up at the dark arched windows in the tower, he half
expected to be beckoned to by something which was
not a Bell, and yet was what he heard so often sound-
ing in the Chimes. For all this, Toby scouted with
indignation a certain flying rumour that the Chimes
were haunted, as implying the possibility of their
being connected with any Evil thing. In short, they
were very often in his ears, and very often in his
thoughts, but ahvays in his good opinion; and he very
often got such a crick in his neck by staring with
his mouth wide open, at the steeple where they hung.

THE CHIMES. 123

that he was fain to take an extra trot or two, after-
wards, to cure it.

The very thing he was in the act of doing one
cold day, when the last drowsy sound of Twelve
o'clock, just struck, was humming like a melodious
monster of a Bee, and not by any means a busy Bee,
all through the steeple!

"Dinner-time, eh!" said Toby, trotting up and
down before the church. "Ah!"

Toby's nose was very red, and his eyelids were
very red, and he winked very much, and his shoulders
were very near his ears, and his legs were very stiff,
and altogether he was evidently a long way upon the
frosty side of cool.

"Dinner-time, eh!" repeated Toby, using his right
hand muffler like an infantine boxing-glove, and punish-
ing his chest for being cold. "Ah-h-h-h!"

He took a silent trot, after that, for a minute or
two.

"There's nothing," said Toby, bi-eaking forth afresh,
— but here he stopped short in his trot, and with a
face of great interest and some alarm, felt his nose
carefully all the way up. It was but a little way (not
being much of a nose) and he had soon finished.

"I thought it was gone," said Toby, trotting off
again. "It's all right, however. I am sure I couldn't
blame it if it was to go. It has a precious hard
service of it in the bitter weather, and precious little
to look forward to: for I don't take snuff myself It's
a good deal tried, poor creetur, at the best of times;
for when it does get hold of a pleasant whiff or so
(which an't too often), it's generally from somebody
else's dinner, a-coming home from the baker's."

124 THE CHIMES.

The reflection reminded him of that other reflection,
which he had left unfinished.

"There's nothing," said Toby, "more regular in its
coming round than dinner-time, and nothing less
regular in its coming round than dinner. That's the
great difference between 'em. It's took me a long
time to find it out. I wonder whether it would be
worth any gentleman's while, now, to buy that ob-
serwation for the Papers; or the Parliament!"

Toby was only joking, for he gravely shook his
head in self-depreciation.

"Why! Lord!" said Toby. "The Papers is full
of obserwations as it is; and so's the Parliament.
Here's last week's paper, now;" taking a very dirty
one from his pocket, and holding it from him at arm's
length; "full of obserwations! Full of obserwations!
I like to know the news as well as any man," said
Toby, slowly; folding it a little smaller, and putting
it in his pocket again: "but it almost goes against
the grain with me to read a paper now. It frightens
me almost. I don't know what we poor people are
coming to. Lord send we may be coming to some-
thing better in the New Year nigh upon us!"

"Why, father, father!" said a pleasant voice
hard by.

But Toby, not hearing it, continued to trot back-
wards and forwards: musing as he went, and talking
to himself.

"It seems as if we can't go right, or do right, or
be righted," said Toby. "I hadn't much schooling,
myself, when I was young; and I can't make out
whether we have any business on the face of the earth,
or not. Sometimes I think we must have — a little;

THE CHIMES. 12$

and sometimes I think we must be intruding. I get
so puzzled sometimes that I am not even able to make
up my mind whether there is any good at all in us, or
whether we are born bad. We seem to do dreadful
things; we seem to give a deal of trouble; we are
always being complained of and guarded against. One
way or another, we fill the papers. Talk of a New
Year!" said Toby, mournfully. "I can bear up as
well as another man at most times; better than a
good many, for I am as strong as a lion, and all men
an't; but supposing it should really be that we have
no right to a New Year — supposing we really are in-
truding "

"Why, father, father!" said the pleasant voice
again.

Toby heard it this time; started; stopped; and
shortening his sight, which had been directed a long
way off as seeking for enlightenment in the very
heart of the approaching year, found himself face to
face with his own child, and looking close into her
eyes.

Bright eyes they were. Eyes that would bear a
world of looking in, before their depth was fathomed.
Dark eyes, that reflected back the eyes which searched
them; not flashingly, or at the owner's will, but with
a clear, calm, honest, patient radiance, claiming
kindred with that light which Heaven called into
being. Eyes that were beautiful and true, and beam-
ing with Hope. With Hope so young and fresh; with
Hope so buoyant, vigorous, and bright, despite the
twenty years of work and poverty on which they had
looked; that they became a voice to Trotty Veck,

126 THE CHIMES.

and said: "I think we have some business here — a
little!"

Trotty kissed the lips belonging to the eyes, and
squeezed the blooming face between his hands.

"Why Pet," said Trotty, "What's to-do? I didn't
expect you to-day, Meg."

"Neither did I expect to come, father," cried the
girl, nodding her head and smiling as she spoke. "But
here I am! And not alone; not alone!"

"Why you don't mean to say," observed Trotty,
looking curiously at a covered basket which she car-
ried in her hand, "that you "

"Smell it, father dear," said Meg, "Only smell it!"

Trotty was going to lift up the cover at once, in
a great hurry, when she gaily interposed her hand.

"No, no, no," said Meg, with the glee of a child.
"Lengthen it out a little. Let me just lift up the
corner; just the lit-tle ti-ny cor-ner, you know," said
Meg, suiting the action to the word with the utmost
gentleness, and speaking very softly, as if she were
afraid of being overheard by something inside the
basket; "there. Now. What's that?"

Toby took the shortest possible sniff at the edge
of the basket, and cried out in a rapture:

"Why, it's hot!"

"It's burning hot!" cried Meg. "Ha, ha, ha! It's
scalding hot!"

"Ha, ha, ha!" roared Toby, with a sort of kick.
"It's scalding hot."

"But what is it, father?" said Meg. "Come!
You haven't guessed what it is. And you must guess
what it is. I can't think of taking it out, till you
guess what it is. Don't be in such a hurry! Wait

THE CHIMES. 1 27

a minute! A little bit more of the cover. Now
guess!"

Meg was in a perfect fright lest he should guess
right too soon; shrinking away, as she held the basket
towards him; curling up her pretty shoulders; stop-
ping her ear with her hand, as if by so doing she could
keep the right word out of Toby's lips; and laughing
softly the whole time.

Meanwhile Toby, putting a hand on each knee,
bent down his nose to the basket, and took a long
inspiration at the lid; the grin upon his withered face
expanding in the process, as if he were inhaling laugh-
ing gas.

"Ah! It's very nice," said Toby. "It an't — I sup-
pose it an't Polonies?"

"No, no, no!" cried Meg, delighted. "Nothing
like Polonies!"

"No," said Toby, after another sniff. "It's — it's
mellower than Polonies. It's very nice. It improves
every moment. It's too decided for Trotters. An't it!"

Meg was in an ecstacy. He could not have gone
wider of the mark than Trotters — except Polonies.

"Liver?" said Toby, communing with himself.
"No. There's a mildness about it that don't answer
to liver. Pettitoes? No. It an't faint enough for
pettitoes. It wants the stringiness of Cocks' heads.
And I know it an't sausages. I'll tell you what it is.
It's chitterlings!"

"No, it an't!" cried Meg, in a burst of delight.
"No, it an't!"

"Why, what am I a thinking of!" said Toby, sud-
denly recovering a position as near the perpendicular

128 THE CHIMES.

as it was possible for him to assume. "I shall forget
my own name next. It's tripe!"

Tripe it was; and Meg, in high joy, protested he
should say, in half a minute more, it was the best
tripe ever stewed.

"And so," said Meg, busying herself exultingly
with the basket, "I'll lay the cloth at once, father;
for I have brought the tripe in a basin, and tied the
basin up in a pocket-handkerchief; and if I like to
be proud for once, and spread that for a cloth, and
call it a cloth, there's no law to prevent me; is there,
father?"

"Not that I know of, my dear," said Toby. "But
they're always a bringing up some new law or other."

"And according to what I was reading you in the
paper the other day, father; what the Judge said, you
know; we poor people are supposed to know them all.
Ha ha! What a mistake! My goodness me, how
clever they think us!"

"Yes, my dear," cried Trotty; "and they'd be very
fond of any one of us that did know 'em all. He'd
grow fat upon the work he'd get, that man, and be
popular with the gentlefolks in his neighbourhood.
Very much so!"

"He'd eat his dinner with an appetite, whoever
he was, if it smelt like this," said Meg, cheerfully.
"Make haste, for there's a hot potato besides, and
half a pint of fresh-drawn beer in a bottle. Where
will you dine, father? On the Post, or on the Steps?
Dear, dear, how grand we are. Two places to choose
from!"

"The steps to-day, my Pet," said Trotty. "Steps
in dry weather. Post in wet. There's a greater con-

THE CHIMES. 12g

veniency in the steps at all times, because of the sit-
ting down; but they're rheumatic in the damp."

" Then here," said Meg, clapping her hands, after a
moment's bustle; "here it is, all ready! And beautiful
it looks! Come, father. Come!"

Since his discovery of the contents of the basket,
Trotty had been standing looking at her — and had
been speaking too — in an abstracted manner, which
showed that though she was the object of his thoughts
and eyes, to the exclusion even of tripe, he neither
saw nor thought about her as she was at that moment,
but had before him some imaginary rough sketch or
drama of her future life. Roused, now, by her cheerful
summons, he shook off a melancholy shake of the
head which was just coming upon him, and trotted to
her side. As he was stooping to sit down, the Chimes
rang.

"Amen!" said Trotty, pulling off his hat and look-
ing up towards them.

"Amen to the Bells, father?" cried Meg.

"They broke in like a grace, my dear," said Trotty,
taking his seat. "They'd say a good one, I am sure,
if they could. Many's the kind thing they say to
me."

"The Bells do, father!" laughed Meg, as she set
the basin, and a knife and fork before him, "Well!"

"Seem to, my Pet," said Trotty, falling to with
great vigour. "And where's the difference? If I hear
'em, what does it matter whether they speak it or not?
Why bless you, my dear," said Toby, pointing at the
tower with his fork, and becoming more animated
under the influence of dinner, "how often have I heard
them bells say, 'Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good

A Christmas Carols etc. 9

130 THE CHIMES.

heart Toby! Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good
heart Toby!' A million times? More!"

"Well, I never!" cried Meg.

She had, though — over and over again. For it was
Toby's constant topic.

"When things is very bad," saidTrotty; "very bad
indeed, I mean; almost at the worst; then it's 'Toby
Veck, Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby! Toby Veck,
Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby!' That way."

"And it comes — at last, father," said Meg, with a
touch of sadness in her pleasant voice.

"Always," answered the unconscious Toby. "Never
fails."

While this discourse was holding, Trotty made no
pause in his attack upon the savoury meat before him,
but cut and ate, and cut and drank, and cut and
chewed, and dodged about, from tripe to hot potato,
and from hot potato back again to tripe, with an
unctuous and unflagging relish. But happening now
to look all round the street — in case anybody should
be beckoning from any door or window, for a porter
< — his eyes, in coming back again, encountered Meg:
sitting opposite to him, with her arms folded: and
' only busy in watching his progress with a smile of
happiness.

"Why, Lord forgive me!" said Trotty, dropping
his knife and fork. "My dove! Meg! why didn't you
tell me what a beast I was?"

"Father?"

"Sitting here," saidTrotty, in penitent explanation,
"cramming, and stuffing, and gorging myself; and you
before me there, never so much as breaking your pre-
cious fast, nor wanting to, when "

THE CHIMES. I3I

"But I have broken it, father," interposed his
daughter, laughing, "all to bits. I have had my
dinner."

"Nonsense," said Trotty. "Two dinners in one
day! It an't possible! You might as well tell me
that two New Year's Days will come together, or
that I have had a gold head all my life, and never
changed it."

"I have had my dinner, father, for all that," said
Meg, coming nearer to him. "And if you'll go on
with yours, I'll tell you how and where; and how your
dinner came to be brought; and — and something else
besides."

Toby still appeared incredulous; but she looked
into his face with her clear eyes, and laying her hand
upon his shoulder, motioned him to go on while the
meat was hot. So Trotty took up his knife and fork
again, and went to work. But much more slowly than
before, and shaking his head, as if he were not at all
pleased with himself.

"I had my dinner, father," said Meg, after a little
hesitation, "with — with Richard. His dinner-time was
early; and as he brought his dinner with him when he
came to see me, we — we had it together, father."

Trotty took a little beer, and smacked his lips.
Then he said, "Oh!" — because she waited.

"And Richard says, father — " Meg resumed. Then
stopped.

"What does Richard say, Meg?" asked Toby.

"Richard says, father — " Another stoppage.

"Richard's a long time saying it," said Toby.

"He says then, father," Meg continued, lifting up
her eyes at last, and speaking in a tremble, but quite

9*

132 THE CHIMES.

plainly; "another year is nearly gone, and where is
the use of waiting on from year to year, when it is so
unlikely we shall ever be better off than we are now?
He says we are poor now, father, and we shall be poor
then, but we are young now, and years will make us
old before we know it. He says that if we wait:
people in our condition: until we see our way quite
clearly, the way will be a narrow one indeed — the
common way — the Grave, father."

A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have
drawn upon his boldness largely, to deny it. Trotty
held his peace.

"And how hard, father, to grow old, and die, and
think we might have cheered and helped each other!
How hard in all our lives to love each other; and to
grieve, apart, to see each other working, changing,
growing old and grey. Even if I got the better of
it, and forgot him (which I never could), oh father
dear, how hard to have a heart so full as mine is now,
and live to have it slowly drained out every drop,
without the recollection of one happy moment of a
woman's life, to stay behind and comfort me, and
make me better!"

Trotty sat quite still. Meg dried her eyes, and said
more gaily: that is to say, with here a laugh, and
there a sob, and here a laugh and sob together:

"So Richard says, father; as his work was yester-
day made certain for some time to come, and as I love
him and have loved him full three years — ah! longer
than that, if he knew it! — will I marry him on New
Year's Day; the best and happiest day, he says, in the
whole year, and one that is almost sure to bring good
fortune with it. It's a short notice, father— isn't it?

THE CHIMES. 1 33

— but I haven't my fortune to be settled, or my wed-
ding dresses to be made, like the great ladies, father,
have I? And he said so much, and said it in his
way; so strong and earnest, and all the time so kind
and gentle; that I said I'd come and talk to you,
father. And as they paid the money for that work of
mine this morning (unexpectedly, I am sure!), and as
you have fared very poorly for a whole week, and as
I couldn't help wishing there should be something to
make this day a sort of holiday to you as well as a
dear and happy day to me father, I made a little treat
and brought it to surprise you."

"And see how he leaves it cooling on the step!"
said another voice.

It was the voice of this same Richard, who had
come upon them unobserved, and stood before the
father and daughter; looking down upon them with
a face as glowing as the iron on which his stout
sledge-hammer daily rung. A handsome, well-made,
powerful youngster he was; with eyes that sparkled
like the red-hot droppings from a furnace fire; black
hair that curled about his swarthy temples rarely; and
a smile — a smile that bore out Meg's eulogium on his
style of conversation.

"See how he leaves it cooling on the step!" said
Richard. "Meg don't know what he likes. Not she!"

Trotty, all action and enthusiasm, immediately
reached up his hand to Richard, and was going to
address him in a great hurry, when the house-door
opened without any warning, and a footman very
nearly put his foot in the tripe.

"Out of the vays here, will you! You must always
go and be a settin on our steps, must you! You

134 "THE CHIMES.

can't go and give a turn to none of the neighbours
never, can't you! Wi7l you clear the road, or won't
you?"

Strictly speaking, the last question was irrelevant,
as they had aheady done it.

"What's the matter, what's the matter!" said the
gentleman for whom the door was opened; coming
out of the house at that kind of light -heavy pace —
that peculiar compromise between a walk and a jog-
trot— with which a gentleman upon the smooth down-
hill of life, wearing creaking boots, a watch-chain, and
clean linen, may come out of his house: not only
without any abatement of his dignity, but with an
expression of having important and wealthy engage-
ments elsewhere. "What's the matter. What's the
matter!"

"You're always a being begged, and prayed, upon
your bended knees you are," said the footman with
great emphasis to Trotty Veck, "to let our door-steps
be. Why don't you let 'em be? Can't you let 'em
be?"

"There! That'll do, that'll do!" said the gentle-
man. "Halloa there! Porter!" beckoning with his
head to Trotty Veck. "Come here. What's that?
Your dinner?"

"Yes, sir," said Trotty, leaving it behind him in a
corner.

"Don't leave it there," exclaimed the gentleman.
"Bring it here, bring it here. So! This is your
dinner, is it?"

"Yes Sir," repeated Trotty, looking, with a fixed
eye and a watery mouth, at the piece of tripe he had
reserved for a last delicious tit-bit; which the gentle-

THE CHIMES. 1 35

man was now turning over and over on the end of

the fork.

Two other gentlemen had come out with him. One
was a low-spirited gentleman of middle age, of a
meagre habit, and a disconsolate face; who kept his
hands continually in the pockets of his scanty pepper-
and-salt trousers, very large and dog's-eared from that
custom; and was not particularly well brushed or
washed. The other, a full-sized, sleek, well-conditioned
gentleman, in a blue coat with bright buttons, and a
white cravat. This gentleman had a very red face, as
if an undue proportion of the blood in his body were
squeezed up into his head; which perhaps accounted
for his having also the appearance of being rather cold
about the heart.

He who had Toby's meat upon the fork, called to
the first one by the name of Filer; and they both
drew near together. Mr. Filer being exceedingly short-
sighted, was obliged to go so close to the remnant of
Toby's dinner before he could make out what it was,
that Toby's heart leaped up into his mouth. But Mr.
Filer didn't eat it.

"This is a description of animal food. Alderman,"
said Filer, making little punches in it, with a pencil-
case, "commonly known to the labouring population
of this country, by the name of tripe."

The Alderman laughed, and winked; for he was a
merry fellow, Alderman Cute. Oh, and a sly fellow
too! A knowing fellow. Up to everything. Not to
be imposed upon. Deep in the people's hearts! He
knew them. Cute did. I believe you!

"But who eats tripe?" said Mr. Filer, looking
round. "Tripe is without an exception the least

136 THE CHIMES.

economical, and the most wasteful article of consump-
tion that the markets of this country can by possibility
produce. The loss upon a pound of tripe has been
found to be, in the boiling, seven-eighths of a fifth
more than the loss upon a pound of any other animal
substance whatever. Tripe is more expensive, properly
understood, than the hothouse pine -apple. Taking
into account the number of animals slaughtered yearly
within the bills of mortality alone; and forming a low
estimate of the quantity of tripe which the carcases of
those animals, reasonably well butchered, would yield;
I find that the waste on that amount of tripe, if boiled,
would victual a garrison of five hundred men for five
months of thirty-one days each, and a February over.
The Waste, the Waste!"

Trotty stood aghast, and his legs shook under him.
He seemed to have starved a garrison of five hundred
men with his own hand.

"Who eats tripe?" said Mr. Filer, warmly. "Who
eats tripe?"

Trotty made a miserable bow.

"You do, do you?" said Mr. Filer. "Then Til tell
you something. You snatch your tripe, my friend, out
of the mouths of widows and orphans."

"I hope not, sir," said Trotty, faintly. "I'd sooner
die of want!"

"Divide the amount of tripe before -mentioned,
Alderman," said Mr. Filer, "by the estimated number
of existing widows and orphans, and the result will be
one pennyweight of tripe to each. Not a grain is left
for that man. Consequently, he's a robber."

Trotty was so shocked, that it gave him no concern

THE CHIMES, 137

to see the Alderman finish the tripe himself. It was a
relief to get rid of it, anyhow.

"And what do you say?" asked the Alderman,
jocosely, of the red -faced gentleman in the blue
coat. "You have heard friend Filer. What do you
say?"

"What's it possible to say?" returned the gentle-
man. "What is to be said? Who can take any
interest in a fellow like this," meaning Trotty; "in
such degenerate times as these. Look at him! What
an object! The good old times, the grand old times,
the great old times! Those were the times for a bold
peasantry, and all that sort of thing. Those were the
times for every sort of thing, in fact. There's nothing
now-a-days. Ah!" sighed the red -faced gentleman.
"The good old times, the good old times!"

The gentleman didn't specify what particular times
he alluded to; nor did he say whether he objected to
the present times, from a disinterested consciousness
that they had done nothing very remarkable in pro-
ducing himself.

"The good old times, the good old times," re-
peated the gentleman. "What times they were! They
were the only times. It's of no use talking about
any other times, or discussing what the people are
in these times. You don't call these, times, do you?
I don't. Look into Strutt's Costumes, and see what
a Porter used to be, in any of the good old English
reigns."

"He hadn't, in his very best circumstances, a shirt
to his back, or a stocking to his foot; and there was
scarcely a vegetable in all England for him to put

138 THE CHIMES.

into his mouth," said Mr. Filer. "I can prove it, by
tables."

But still the red-faced gentleman extolled the good
old times, the grand old times, the great old times.
No matter what anybody else said, he still went turn-
ing round and round in one set form of words con-
cerning them; as a poor squirrel turns and turns in
its revolving cage; touching the mechanism, and trick
of which, it has probably quite as distinct perceptions,
as ever this red-faced gentleman had of his deceased
Millennium.

It is possible that poor Trotty's faith in these very
vague Old Times was not entirely destroyed, for he
felt vague enough, at that moment. One thing, how-
ever, was plain to him, in the midst of his distress; to
wit, that however these gentlemen might differ in de-
tails, his misgivings of that morning, and of many
other mornings, were well founded. "No, no. We
can't go right or do right," thought Trotty in despair.
"There is no good in us. We are born bad!"

But Trotty had a father's heart within him; which
had somehow got into his breast in spite of this decree;
and he could not bear that Meg, in the blush of her
brief joy, should have her fortune read by these wise
gentlemen. "God help her," thought poor Trotty.
"She will know it soon enough."

He anxiously signed, therefore, to the young smith,
to take her away. But he was so busy, talking to her
softly, at a little distance, that he only became con-
scious of this desire, simultaneously with Aldermay
Cute. Now, the Alderman had not yet had his sah,
but he was a philosopher, too — practical, though! On,

THE CHIMES. I39

very practical! — and, as he had no idea of losing any
portion of his audience, he cried "Stop!"

"Now, you know," said the Alderman, addressing
his two friends, with a self-complacent smile upon his
face, which was habitual to him, "I am a plain man,
and a practical man; and I go to work in a plain
practical way. That's my way. There is not the
least mystery or difficulty in dealing with this sort of
people if you only understand 'em, and can talk to
'em in their own manner. Now, you Porter! Don't
you ever tell me, or anybody else my friend, that you
haven't always enough to eat, and of the best; because
I know better. I have tasted your tripe, you know,
and you can't 'chaff' me. You understand what
* chaff' means, eh? That's the right word, isn't it?
Ha, ha, ha! Lord bless you," said the Alderman,
turning to his friends again, "it's the easiest thing on
earth to deal with this sort of people, if you only un-
derstand 'em."

Famous man for the common people. Alderman
Cute! Never out of temper with them! Easy, affable,
joking, knowing gentleman!

"You see, my friend," pursued the Alderman,
"there's a great deal of nonsense talked about Want
— 'hard up,' you know: that's the phrase isn't it?
ha! ha! ha! — and I intend to Put it Down. There's
a certain amount of cant in vogue about Starvation,
and I mean to Put it Down. That's all! Lord bless
you," said the Alderman, turning to his friends again,
"you may Put Down anything among this sort of people,
if you only know the way to set about it!"

Trotty took Meg's hand and drew it through his

1^6 THE CHIMES.

arm. He didn't seem to know what he was doing
though.

"Your daughter, eh?" said the Alderman, chucking
her famiUarly under the chin.

Always affable with tlie working classes, Alderman
Cute! Knew what pleased them! Not a bit of pride!

"Where's her mother?" asked that worthy gentle-
man.

"Dead," said Toby. "Her mother got up linen;
and was called to Heaven when She was born."

"Not to get up linen /here, I suppose," remarked
the Alderman pleasantly.

Toby might or might not have been able to separate
his wife in Heaven from her old pursuits. But query:
If Mrs. Alderman Cute had gone to Heaven, would
Mr. Alderman Cute have pictured her as holding any
state or station there?

"And you're making love to her, are you?" said
Cute to the young smith.

"Yes," returned Richard quickly, for he was nettled
by the question. "And we are going to be married
on New Year's Day."

"What do you mean!" cried Filer sharply. "Mar-
ried!"

"Why, yes, we're thinking of it, Master," said
Richard. "We're rather in a hurry you see, in case it
should be Put Down first."

"Ah!" cried Filer, with a groan. "Put f/iaf down
indeed. Alderman, and you'll do something. Married!
Married!! The ignorance of the first principles of
political economy on the part of these people; their
improvidence; their wickedness; is, by Heavens! enough
to — Now look at that couple, will you!"

THE CHIMES. I4I

Well! They were worth looking at. And marriage
seemed as reasonable and fair a deed as they need
have in contemplation.

"A man may live to be as old as Methusaleh," said
Mr. Filer, "and may labour all his life for the benefit
of such people as those; and may heap up facts on
figures, facts on figures, facts on figures, mountains
high and dry; and he can no more hope to persuade
'em that they have no right or business to be married,
than he can hope to persuade 'em that they have no
earthly right or business to be born. And that we
know they haven't. We reduced it to a mathematical
certainty long ago!"

Alderman Cute was mightily diverted, and laid his
right forefinger on the side of his nose, as much as to
say to both his friends, "Observe me, will you? Keep
your eye on the practical man!" — and called Meg to
him.

"Come here, my girl!" said Alderman Cute.

The young blood of her lover had been mounting,
wrathfully, within the last few minutes; and he was
indisposed to let her come. But, setting a constraint
upon himself, he came forward with a stride as Meg
approached, and stood beside her. Trotty kept her
hand within his arm still, but looked from face to face
as wildly as a sleeper in a dream.

"Now, I'm going to give you a word or two of
good advice, my girl," said the Alderman, in his nice
easy way. "It's my place to give advice, you know,
because I'm a Justice. You know I'm a Justice, don't
you?"

Meg timidly said, "Yes." But everybody knew
Alderman Cute was a Justice! Oh dear, so active a

142 THE CHIMES.

Justice always! Who such a mote of brightness in the
public eye, as Cute!

"You are going to be married, you say," pursued
the Alderman. "Very unbecoming and indelicate in
one of your sex! But never mind that. After you
are married, you'll quarrel with your husband, and
come to be a distressed wife. You may think not;
but you will, because I tell you so. Now, I give you
fair warning, that I have made up my mind to Put
distressed wives Down. So, don't be brought before
me. You'll have children — boys. Those boys will
grow up bad, of course, and run wild in the streets,
without shoes and stockings. Mind, my young friend!
I'll convict 'em summarily, every one, for I am de-
termined to Put boys without shoes and stockings,
Down. Perhaps your husband will die young (most
likely) and leave you with a baby. Then you'll be
turned out of doors, and wander up and down the
streets. Now, don't wander near me, my dear, for I
am resolved to Put all wandering mothers Down. All
young mothers, of all sorts and kinds, it's my deter-
mination to Put Down. Don't think to plead illness
as an excuse with me; or babies as an excuse with
me; for all sick persons and young children (I hope
you know the church-service, but I'm afraid not) I am
determined to Put Down. And if you attempt, des-
perately, and ungratefully, and impiously, and fraudu-
lently attempt, to drown yourself, or hang yourself,
I'll have no pity on you, for I have made up my mind
to Put all suicide Down! If there is one thing," said
the Alderman, with his self-satisfied smile, "on which
I can be said to have made up my mind more than
on another, it is to Put suicide Down. So don't try

THE CHIMES. 143

it on. That's the phrase, isn't it! Ha, ha! now we
understand each other."

Toby knew not whether to be agonised or glad, to
see that Meg had turned a deadly white, and dropped
her lover's hand.

"As for you, you dull dog," said the Alderman,
turning with even increased cheerfulness and urbanity
to the young smith, "what are you thinking of being
married for? What do you want to be married for,
you silly fellow! If I was a fine, young, strapping
chap like you, I should be ashamed of being milksop
enough to pin myself to a woman's apronstrings !
Why, she'll be an old woman before you're a middle-
aged man! And a pretty figure you'll cut then, with
a draggle-tailed wife and a crowd of squalling children
crying after you wherever you go!"

O, he knew how to banter the common people,
Alderman Cute!

"There! Go along with you," said the Alderman
"and repent. Don't make such a fool of yourself as
to get married on New Year's Day. You'll think
very differently of it, long before next New Year's
Day: a trim young fellow like you, with all the girls
looking after you. There! Go along with you!"

They went along. Not arm in arm, or hand in
hand, or interchanging bright glances; but, she in
tears; he gloomy and down-looking. Were these the
hearts that had so lately made old Toby's leap up
from its faintness? No, no. The Alderman (a blessing
on his head!) had Put them Down.

"As you happen to be here," said the Alderman to
Toby, "you shall carry a letter for me. Can you be
quick? You're an old man."

144 THE CHIMES.

Toby, who had been looking after Meg, quite
stupidly, made shift to murmur out that he was very
quick, and very strong.

"How old are you?" enquired the Alderman.

"I am over sixty, sir," said Toby.

"O! This man's a great deal past the average
age, you know," cried Mr. Filer, breaking in as if his
patience would bear some trying, but this really was
carrying matters a little too far.

"I feel I'm intruding, sir," said Toby. "I — I mis-
doubted it this morning. Oh dear me!"

The Alderman cut him short by giving him the
letter from his pocket. Toby would have got a shil-
ling too; but Mr. Filer clearly showing tliat in that
case he would rob a certain given number of persons
of ninepence-half-penny a-piece, he only got sixpence;
and thought himself very well off to get that.

Then the Alderman gave an arm to each of his
friends, and walked off in high feather; but he im-
mediately came hurrying back alone, as if he had for-
gotten something.

"Porter!" said the Alderman.

"Sir!" said Toby.

"Take care of that daughter of yours. She's much
too handsome."

"Even her good looks are stolen from somebody
or other I suppose," thought Toby, looking at the six-
pence in his hand, and thinking of the tripe. "She's
been and robbed five hundred ladies of a bloom
a-piece, I shouldn't wonder. It's very dreadful!"

" She's much too handsome, my man," repeated the
Alderman. "The chances are, that she'll come to no

THE CHIMES. 145

good, I clearly see. Observe what I say. Take care
of her!" With which, he hurried off again.

"Wrong every way. Wrong every way!" said
Trotty, clasping his hands. "Born bad. No business
here!"

The Chimes came clashing in upon him as he said
the words. Full, loud, and sounding — but with no
encouragement. No, not a drop.

"The tune's changed," cried the old man, as he
listened. "There's not a word of all that fancy in it.
Why should there be? I have no business with the
New Year nor with the old one neither. Let me
die!"

Still the Bells, peaUng forth their changes, made
the very air spin. Put 'em down. Put 'em down!
Good old Times, Good old Times! Facts and Figures,
Facts and Figures! Put 'em down. Put 'em down!
If they said anything they said this, until the brain of
Toby reeled.

He pressed his bewildered head between his hands,
as if to keep it from splitting asunder. A well-timed
action, as it happened; for finding the letter in one
of them, and being by that means reminded of his
charge, he fell, mechanically, into his usual trot, and
trotted off.

SECOND QUARTER.

The letter Toby had received from Alderman Cute,
was addressed to a great man in the great district
of the town. The greatest district of the town. It
must have been the greatest district of the town, be-

A Chrisima.<! Carol, eic, 10

146 THE CHIMES.

cause it was commonly called "the world" by its in-
habitants.

The letter positively seemed heavier in Toby^s
hand, than another letter. Not because the Alderman
had sealed it with a very large coat of arms and no
end of wax, but because of the weighty name on the
superscription, and the ponderous amount of gold and
silver with which it was associated.

"How different from us!" thought Toby, in all
simplicity and earnestness, as he looked at the direc-
tion. "Divide the lively turtles in the bills of mor-
tality, by the number of gentlefolks able to buy 'em;
and whose share does he take but his own! As to
snatching tripe from anybody's mouth — he'd scorn it!"

With the involuntary homage due to such an ex-
alted character, Toby interposed a corner of his apron
between the letter and his fingers.

"His children," said Trotty, and a mist rose before
his eyes; "his daughters — Gentlemen may win their
hearts and marry them; they may be happy wives
and mothers; they may be handsome like my darling
M— e— "

He couldn't finish her name. The final letter
swelled in his throat, to the size of the whole al-
phabet.

"Never mind," thought Trotty. "I know what I
mean. That's more than enough for me." And with
this consolatory rumination, trotted on.

It was a hard frost, that day. The air was bracing,
crisp, and clear. The wintry sun, though powerless
for warmth, looked brightly down upon the ice it was
too weak to melt, and set a radiant glory there. At
other times, Trotty might have learned a poor man's

THE CHIMES. t^'J

lesson from the wintry sun; but, he was past that,
now.

The Year was Old, that day. The patient Year
had lived through the reproaches and misuses of its
slanderers, and faithfully performed its work. Spring,
summer, autumn, winter. It had laboured through
the destined round, and now laid down its weary
head to die. Shut out from hope, high impulse, active
happiness, itself, but messenger of many joys to others,
it made appeal in its decline to have its toiling days
and patient hours remembered, and to die in peace.
Trotty might have read a poor man's allegory in the
fading year; but he was past that, now.

And only he? Or has the like appeal been ever
made, by seventy years at once upon an English
labourer's head, and made in vain!

The streets were full of motion, and the shops
were decked out gaily. The New Year, like an Infant
Heir to the whole world, was waited for, with wel-
comes, presents, and rejoicings. There were books
and toys for the New Year, glittering trinkets for the
New Year, dresses for the New Year, schemes of
fortune for the New Year; new inventions to beguile
it. Its life was parcelled out in almanacks and pocket-
books; the coming of its moons, and stars, and tides,
was known beforehand to the moment; all the work-
ings of its seasons in their days and nights, were
calculated with as much precision as Mr. Filer could
work sums in men and women.

The New Year, the New Year. Everywhere the
New Year! The Old Year was already looked upon
as dead; and its effects were selling cheap, like some
drowned mariner's aboardship. Its patterns were Last

10*

148 THE CHIMES.

Year's, and going at a sacrifice, before its breath was
gone. Its treasures were mere dirt, beside the riches
of its unborn successor!

Trotty had no portion, to his thinking, in the New
Year or the Old.

"Put 'em down. Put 'em down! Facts and Figures,
Facts and Figures! Good old Times, Good old Times!
Put 'em down, Put 'em down!" — his trot went to that
measure, and would fit itself to nothing else.

But, even that one, melancholy as it was, brought
him, in due time, to the end of his journey. To
the mansion of Sir Joseph Bowley, Member of Par-
liament.

The door was opened by a Porter. Such a Porter!
Not of Toby's order. Quite another thing. His place
was the ticket though; not Toby's.

This Porter underwent some hard panting before
he could speak; having breathed himself by coming
incautiously out of his chair, without first taking time
to think about it and compose his mind. When he
had found his voice — which it took him some time to
do, for it was a long way off, and hidden under a load
of meat — he said in a fat whisper,

"Who's it from?"

Toby told him.

"You're to take it in, yourself," said the Porter,
pointing to a room at the end of a long passage,
opening from the hall. "Everything goes straight in,
on this day of the year. You're not a bit too soon;
for the carriage is at the door now, and they have
only come to town for a couple of hours, a' purpose."

Toby wiped his feet (which were quite dry already)
with great care, and took the way pointed out to him;

THE CHIMES. 1 49

observing as he went that it was an awfully grand
house, but hushed and covered up, as if the family-
were in the country. Knocking at the room door, he
was told to enter from within; and doing so found
himself in a spacious library, where, at a table strewn
with files and papers, were a stately lady in a bonnet
and a not very stately gentleman in black who wrote
from her dictation; while another, and an older, and
a much statelier gentleman, whose hat and cane were
on the table, walked up and down, with one hand in
his breast, and looked complacently from time to time
at his own picture — a full length; a very full length
— hanging over the fire-place.

"What is this?" said the last-named gentleman.
"Mr. Fish, will you have the goodness to attend?"

Mr. Fish begged pardon, and taking the letter
from Toby, handed it, with great respect.

"From Alderman Cute, Sir Joseph."

"Is this all? Have you nothing else, Porter?" in-
quired Sir Joseph.

Toby replied in the negative.

"You have no bill or demand upon me — my name
is Bowley, Sir Joseph Bowley — of any kind from any-
body, have you?" said Sir Joseph. "If you have,
present it. There is a cheque-book by the side of
Mr. Fish. I allow nothing to be carried into the
New Year. Every description of account is settled
in this house at the close of the old one. So that if
death was to — to — "

"To cut," suggested Mr. Fish.

"To sever, sir," returned Sir Joseph, with great
asperity, "the cord of existence — my affairs would be
found, I hope, in a state of preparation."

150 THE CHIMES.

"My dear Sir Joseph!" said the lady, who was
greatly younger than the gentleman. "How shocking!"

"My lady Bowley," returned Sir Joseph, flounder-
ing now and then, as in the great depth of his obser-
vations, "at this season of the year we should think
of — of — ourselves. We should look into our — our
accounts. We should feel that every return of so
eventful a period in human transactions, involves
matter of deep moment between a man and his — and
his banker."

Sir Joseph delivered these words as if he felt the
full morality of what he was saying; and desired that
even Trotty should have an opportunity of being
improved by such discourse. Possibly he had this
end before him in still forbearing to break the seal of
the letter, and in telling Trotty to wait where he was
a minute.

"You were desiring Mr. Fish to say, my lady — "
observed Sir Joseph.

"Mr. Fish has said that, I believe," returned his
lady, glancing at the letter. "But, upon my word,
Sir Joseph, I don't think I can let it go after all. It
is so very dear."

"What is, dear?" inquired Sir Joseph.

"That Charity, my love. They only allow two
votes for a subscription of five pounds. Really mon-
strous!"

"My lady Bowley," returned Sir Joseph, "you sur-
prise me. Is the luxury of feeling in proportion to
the number of votes; or is it, to a rightly-constituted
mind, in proportion to the number of applicants, and
the wholesome state of mind to which their canvassing
reduces them! Is there no excitement of the purest

THE CHIMES. I5I

kind in having two votes to dispose of among fifty
people?"

"Not to me, I acknowledge," returned the lady.
"It bores one. Besides, one can't oblige one's acquaint-
ance. But you are the Poor Man's Friend, you know.
Sir Joseph. You think otherwise."

"I am the Poor Man's Friend," observed Sir Joseph,
glancing at the poor man present. "As such I may
be taunted. As such I have been taunted. But I ask
no other title."

"Bless him for a noble gentleman!" thought Trotty.

"I don't agree with Cute here, for instance," said
Sir Joseph, holding out the letter. "I don't agree with
the Filer party. I don't agree with any party. My
friend the Poor Man, has no business with anything of
that sort, and nothing of that sort has any business
with him. My friend the Poor Man, in my district,
is my business. No man or body of men has any
right to interfere between my friend and me. That is
the ground I take. I assume a — a paternal character
towards my friend. I say, 'My good fellow, I will
treat you paternally.'"

Toby listened with great gravity, and began to feel
more comfortable.

"Your only business, my good fellow," pursued Sir
Joseph, looking abstractedly at Toby; "your only
business in life is with me. You needn't trouble
yourself to think about anything. I will think for
you; I know what is good for you; I am your per-
petual parent. Such is the dispensation of an all-wise
Providence! Now, the design of your creation is — not
that you should swill, and guzzle, and associate your
enjoyments, brutally, with food;" Toby thought re-

152 THE CHIMES.

morsefully of the tripe; "but that you should feel the
Dignity of Labor. Go forth erect into the cheerful
morning air, and — and stop there. Live hard and
temperately, be respectful, exercise your self-denial,
bring up your family on next to nothing, pay your
rent as regularly as the clock strikes, be punctual in
your dealings (I set you a good example; you will find
Mr. Fish, my confidential secretary, with a cash-box
before him at all times); and you may trust to me to
be your Friend and Father."

"Nice children, indeed. Sir Joseph!" said the lady,
with a shudder. "Rheumatisms, and fevers, and
crooked legs, and asthmas, and all kinds of horrors!"

"My lady," returned Sir Joseph, with solemnity,
"not the less am I the Poor Man's Friend and Father.
Not the less shall he receive encouragement at my
hands. Every quarter-day he will be put in com-
munication with Mr. Fish. Every New- Year's Day,
myself and friends will drink his health. Once every
year, myself and friends will address him with the
deepest feeling. Once in his life, he may even perhaps
receive; in public, in the presence of the gentry; a
Trifle from a Friend. And when, upheld no more by
these stimulants, and the Dignity of Labor, he sinks
into his comfortable grave, then my lady" — here Sir
Joseph blew his nose — "I will be a Friend and Father
— on the same terms — to his children."

Toby was greatly moved.

"01 You have a thankful family, Sir Joseph!'*
cried his wife.

"My lady," said Sir Joseph, quite majestically,
"Ingratitude is known to be the sin of that class. I
expect no other return,"

THE CHIMES. 1 53

«Ah! Born bad!" thought Toby. "Nothing melts
us."

"What man can do, / do," pursued Sir Joseph.
"I do my duty as the Poor Man's Friend and Father;
and I endeavour to educate his mind, by inculcating
on all occasions the one great moral lesson which that
class requires. That is, entire Dependence on myself.
They have no business whatever with — with them-
selves. If wicked and designing persons tell them
otherwise, and they become impatient and discon-
tented, and are guilty of insubordinate conduct and
black-hearted ingratitude; which is undoubtedly the
case; I am their Friend and Father still. It is so Or-
dained. It is in the nature of things."

With that great sentiment, he opened the Alder-
man's letter; and read it.

"Very polite and attentive, I am sure!" exclaimed
Sir Joseph. "My lady, the Alderman is so obliging
as to remind me that he has had 'the distinguished
honour' — he is very good — of meeting me at the
house of our mutu^J friend Deedles, the banker; and
he does me the favor to inquire whether it will be
agreeable to me to have Will Fern put down."

^^Most agreeable!" replied my lady Bowley. "The
worst man among them! He has been committing a
robbery, I hope?"

"Why no," said Sir Joseph, referring to the letter.
"Not quite. Very near. Not quite. He came up
to London, it seems, to look for employment (trying to
better himself — that's his story), and being found at
night asleep in a shed, was taken into custody, and
carried next morning before the Alderman. The
Alderman observes (very properly) that he is deter-

154 THE CHIMES.

mined to put this sort of thing down; and that if it
will be agreeable to me to have Will Fern put down^
he will be happy to begin with him."

"Let him be made an example of, by all means,"
returned the lady. "Last winter, when I introduced
pinking and eyelet-holeing among the men and boys in
the village, as a nice evening employment, and had
the lines,

O let us love our occupations.
Bless the squire and his relations.
Live upon our daily rations.
And always know our proper stations,

set to music on the new system, for them to sing the
while; this very Fern — I see him now — touched that
hat of his, and said, 'I humbly ask your pardon, my
lady, but anH I something different from a great girl?'
I expected it, of course; who can expect anything but
insolence and ingratitude from that class of people?
That is not to the purpose, however. Sir Joseph!
Make an example of him ! "

"Hem!" coughed Sir Joseph. "Mr. Fish, if you'll
have the goodness to attend — "

Mr. Fish immediately seized his pen, and wrote
from Sir Joseph's dictation.

"Private. My dear Sir. I am very much indebted
to you for your courtesy in the matter of the man
William Fern, of whom, I regret to add, I can say
nothing favorable. I have uniformly considered myself
in the light of his Friend and Father, but have been
repaid (a common case I grieve to say) with ingratitude,
and constant opposition to my plans. He is a turbu-
lent and rebellious spirit. His character will not bear
investigation. Nothing will persuade him to be happy

THE CHIMES. 155

when he might. Under these circumstances, it appears
to me, I own, that when he comes before you again (as
you informed me he promised to do to-morrow, pend-
ing your inquiries, and I think he may be so far
rehed upon), his committal for some short term as a
Vagabond, would be a service to society, and would be
a salutary example in a country where — for the sake
of those who are, through good and evil report, the
Friends and Fathers of the Poor, as well as with a
view to that, generally speaking, misguided class them-
selves— examples are greatly needed. And I am," and
so forth.

"It appears," remarked Sir Joseph when he had
signed this letter, and Mr. Fish was sealing it, "as if
this were Ordained: really. At the close of the year,
I wind up my account and strike my balance, even
with WiUiam Fern!"

Trotty, who had long ago relapsed, and was very
low-spirited, stepped forward with a rueful face to take
the letter.

"With my compliments and thanks," said Sir
Joseph. "Stop!"

"Stop!" echoed Mr. Fish.

"You have heard, perhaps," said Sir Joseph, oracu-
larly, "certain remarks into which I have been led
respecting the solemn period of time at which we have
arrived, and the duty imposed upon us of settling our
affairs, and being prepared. You have observed that I
don't shelter myself behind my superior standing in
society, but that Mr. Fish — that gentleman — has a
cheque-book at his elbow, and is in fact here, to enable
me to turn over a perfectly new leaf, and enter on the
epoch before us with a clean account. Now, my friend,

156 THE CHIMES.

can you lay your hand upon your heart, and say, that
you also have made preparation for a New Year?"

"lam afraid sir," stammered Trotty, looking meekly
at him, "that I am a — a — little behind-hand with the
world."

"Behind-hand with the world!" repeated Sir Joseph
Bowley, in a tone of terrible distinctness.

"I am afraid sir," faltered Trotty, "that there's a
matter of ten or twelve shillings owing to Mrs. Chicken-
stalker."

"To Mrs. Chickenstalker!" repeated Sir Joseph, in
the same tone as before.

"A shop sir," exclaimed Toby, "in the general line.
Also a— a little money on account of rent. A very
little sir. It oughtn't to be owing, I know, but we
have been hard put to it, indeed!"

Sir Joseph looked at his lady, and at Mr. Fish, and
at Trotty, one after another, twice all round. He then
made a despondent gesture with both hands at once,
as if he gave the thing up altogether.

"How a man, even among this improvident and
impracticable race; an old man; a man grown grey;
can look a New Year in the face, with his affairs in
this condition; how he can lie down on his bed at
night, and get up again in the morning, and — There!"
he said, turning his back on Trotty. "Take the letter.
Take the letter!"

"I heartily wish it was otherwise, sir," said Trotty,
anxious to excuse himself. "We have been tried very
hard."

Sir Joseph still repeating "Take the letter, take the
letter!" and Mr. Fish not only saying the same thing,
but giving additional force to the request by motioning

THE CHIMES. 157

the bearer to the door, he had nothing for it but to
make his bow and leave the house. And in the street,
poor Trotty pulled his worn old hat down on his head,
to hide the grief he felt at getting no hold on the New
Year, anywhere.

He didn't even lift his hat to look up at the Bell
tower when he came to the old church on his return.
He halted there a moment, from habit: and knew that
it was growing dark, and that the steeple rose above
him, indistinct and faint, in the murky air. He knew,
too, that the Chimes would ring immediately; and
that they sounded to his fancy, at such a time, like
voices in the clouds. But he only made the more
haste to deliver the Alderman's letter, and get out of
the way before they began; for he dreaded to hear
them tagging "Friends and Fathers, Friends and
Fathers," to the burden they had rung out last.

Toby discharged himself of his commission, there-
fore, with all possible speed, and set off trotting home-
ward. But what with his pace, which was at best an
awkward one in the street; and what with his hat,
which didn't improve it; he trotted against somebody
in less than no time, and was sent staggering out into
the road.

"I beg your pardon, I'm sure!" said Trotty, pull-
ing up his hat in great confusion, and between the
hat and the torn lining, fixing his head into a kind of
bee-hive. "I hope I haven't hurt you."

As to hurting anybody, Toby was not such an
absolute Samson, but that he was much more likely
to be hurt himself: and indeed, he had flown out into
the road, like a shuttlecock. He had such an opinion

158 THE CHIMES.

of his own strength, however, that he was in real con-
cern for the other party: and said again,

"I hope I haven't hurt you?"

The man against whom he had run; a sun-browned,
sinewy, country-looking man, with grizzled hair, and
a rough chin; stared at him for a moment, as if he
suspected him to be in jest. But, satisfied of his good
faith, he answered:

"No friend. You have not hurt me."

"Nor the child, I hope?" said Trotty.

"Nor the child," returned the man. "I thank you
kindly."

As he said so, he glanced at a little girl he carried
in his arms, asleep: and shading her face with the
long end of the poor handkerchief he wore about his
throat, went slowly on.

The tone in which he said "I thank you kindly,"
penetrated Trotty's heart. He was so jaded and foot-
sore, and so soiled with travel, and looked about him
so forlorn and strange, that it was a comfort to him
to be able to thank any one: no matter for how little.
Toby stood gazing after him as he plodded wearily
away, with the child's arm clinging round his neck.

At the figure in the worn shoes — now the very
shade and ghost of shoes — rough leather leggings,
common frock, and broad slouched hat, Trotty stood
gazing, blind to the whole street. And at the child's
arm, clinging round its neck.

Before he merged into the darkness the traveller
stopped; and looking round, and seeing Trotty stand-
ing there yet, seemed undecided whether to return or
go on. After doing first the one and then the other,

THE CHIMES. 1 59

he came back, and Trotty went half way to meet
him.

"You can tell me, perhaps," said the man with a
faint smile, "and if you can I am sure you will, and
I'd rather ask you than another — where Alderman
Cute lives."

"Close at hand," repHed Toby. "I'll show you
his house with pleasure."

"I was to have gone to him elsewhere to-morrow,"
said the man, accompanying Toby, "but I'm uneasy
under suspicion, and want to clear myself, and to be
free to go and seek my bread — I don't know where.
So, maybe he'll forgive my going to his house to-
night."

"It's impossible," cried Toby with a start, "that
your name's Fern!"

"Eh!" cried the other, turning on him in astonish-
ment.

"Fern! Will Fern!" said Trotty.

"That's my name," replied the other.

"Why then," cried Trotty, seizing him by the arm,
and looking cautiously round, "for Heaven's sake
don't go to him! Don't go to him! He'll put you
down as sure as ever you were born. Here! come up
this alley, and I'll tell you what I mean. Don't go
to himy

His new acquaintance looked as if he thought him
mad; but he bore him company nevertheless. When
they were shrouded from observation, Trotty told him
what he knew, and what character he had received,
and all about it.

The subject of his history listened to it with a
calmness that surprised him. He did not contradict

l60 THE CHIMES.

or interrupt it, once. He nodded his head now and
then — more in corroboration of an old and worn-out
story, it appeared, than in refutation of it; and once
or twice threw back his hat, and passed his freckled
hand over a brow, where every furrow he had ploughed
seemed to have set its image in little. But he did no
more.

"It's true enough in the main," he said, "master,
I could sift grain from husk here and there, but let it
be as His. What odds? I have gone against his
plans; to my misfortun'. I can't help it; I should
do the like to-morrow. As to character, them gentle-
folks will search and search, and pry and pry, and
have it as free from spot or speck in us, afore they'll
help us to a dry good word! — Well! I hope they don't
lose good opinion as easy as we do, or their lives is
strict indeed, and hardly worth the keeping. For my-
self, master, I never took with that hand" — holding it
before him — "what wasn't my own; and never held it
back from work, however hard, or poorly paid. Who-
ever can deny it, let him chop it off! But when work
won't maintain me like a human creetur; when my
living is so bad, that I am Hungry, out of doors and
in; when I see a whole working life begin that way,
go on that way, and end that way, without a chance
or change; then I say to the gentlefolks *Keep away
from me! Let my cottage be. My doors is dark
enough without your darkening of 'em "more. Don't
look for me to come up into the Park to help the
show when there's a Birthday, or fine Speech-making,
or what not. Act your Plays and Games without me,
and be welcome to 'em and enjoy 'em. We've now
to do with one another. I'm best let alone!'"

THE CHIMES. l6l

Seeing that the child in his arms had opened her
eyes, and was looking about her in wonder, he checked
himself to say a word or two of foolish prattle in her
ear, and stand her on the ground beside him. Then
slowly winding one of her long tresses round and
round his rough forefinger like a ring, while she hung
about his dusty leg, he said to Trotty,

"I'm not a cross-grained man by natur', I believe;
and easy satisfied, I'm sure. I bear no ill will against
none of 'em. I only want to live like one of the
Almighty's creeturs. I can't — I don't — and so there's
a pit dug between me, and them that can and do.
There's others like me. You might tell 'em off by
hundreds and by thousands, sooner than by ones."

Trotty knew he spoke the Truth in this, and shook
his head to signify as much.

"I've got a bad name this way," said Fern; "and
I'm not likely, I'm afeared, to get a better. 'Tan't
lawful to be out of sorts, and I am out of sorts, though
God knows I'd sooner bear a cheerful spirit if I could.
Well! I don't know as this Alderman could hurt me
much by sending me to gaol; but without a friend
to speak a word for me, he might do it; and you
see — !" pointing downward with his finger, at the
child.

"She has a beautiful face," said Trotty.

"Why yes!" repHed the other in a low voice, as
he gently turned it up with both his hands towards
his own, and looked upon it steadfastly. "I've thought
so many times. I've thought so, when my hearth was
very cold, and cupboard very bare. I thought so
t'other night, when we were taken like two thieves.
But they — they shouldn't try the little face too often,

A Christmas Carol, etc. 1 1

I 62 THE CHIMES.

should they, Lilian? That's hardly fair upon a
man!"

He sunk his voice so low, and gazed upon her
with an air so stern and strange, that Toby, to divert
the current of his thoughts, inquired if his wife were
living.

"I never had one," he returned, shaking his head.
"She's my brother's child: a orphan. Nine year old,
though you'd hardly think it; but she's tired and
worn out now. They'd have taken car^ on her, the
Union — eight and twenty mile away from where we
live — between four walls (as they took care of my old
father when he couldn't work no more, though he
didn't trouble 'em long); but I took her instead, and
she's lived with me ever since. Her mother had a
friend once, in London here. We are trying to find
her, and to find work too; but it's a large place.
Never mind. More room for us to walk about in,
Lilly!"

Meeting the child's eyes with a smile which melted
Toby more than tears, he shook him by the hand.

"I don't so much as know your name," he said,
"but I've opened my heart free to you, for I'm thank-
ful to you; with good reason. I'll take your advice,
and keep clear of this — "

"Justice," suggested Toby.

"Ah!" he said. "If that's the name they give him.
This Justice. And to-morrow will try whether there's
better fortun' to be met with, somewhere near London.
Good night. A Happy New Year!"

"Stay!" cried Trotty, catching at his hand, as he
relaxed his grip. "Stay! The New Year never can be
happy to me, if we part like this. The New Year

TFIE CHIMES. 163

never can be happy to me, if I see the child and you,
go wandering away, you don't know where, without a
shelter for your heads. Come home with me! I'm a
poor man, living in a poor place; but I can give you
lodging for one night and never miss it. Come home
with me! Here! I'll take her!" cried Trotty, lifting
up the child. "A pretty one! I'd carry twenty times
her weight, and never know I'd got it. Tell me if I
go too quick for you. I'm very fast. I always was!"
Trotty said this, taking about six of his trotting paces
to one stride of his fatigued companion; and with his
thin legs quivering again, beneath the load he bore.

"Why, she's as light," said Trotty, trotting in his
speech as well as in his gait; for he couldn't bear to
be thanked, and dreaded a moment's pause; "as light
as a feather. Lighter than a Peacock's feather — -a
great deal lighter. Here we are, and here we go!
Round this first turning to the right. Uncle Will, and
past the pump, and sharp off up the passage to the
left, right opposite the public house. Here we are,
and here we go. Cross over. Uncle Will, and mind
the kidney pieman at the corner! Here we are and
here we go! Down the Mews here, Uncle Will, and
stop at the black door, with *T. Veck, Ticket Porter'
wrote upon a board; and here we are and here we
go, and here we are indeed, my precious Meg, sur-
prising you!"

With which words Trotty, in a breathless state, set
the child down before his daughter in the middle of
the floor. The little visitor looked once at Meg; and
doubting nothing in that face, but trusting everything
she saw there; ran into her arms.

"Here we are and here we go!" cried Trotty,

II*

164 THE CHIMES.

running round the room and choking audibly. "Here,
Uncle Will, here's a fire you know! Why don't you
come to the fire? Oh here we are and here we go!
Meg, my precious darling, where's the kettle? Here
it is and here it goes, and it'll bile in no time!"

Trotty really had picked up the kettle somewhere
or other in the course of his wild career, and now put
it on the fire: while Meg, seating the child in a warm
corner, knelt down on the ground before her, and
pulled off her shoes, and dried her wet feet on a cloth.
Ay, and she laughed at Trotty too — so pleasantly, so
cheerfully, that Trotty could have blessed her where
she kneeled: for he had seen that, when they entered,
she was sitting by the fire in tears.

"Why, father!" said Meg. "You're crazy to-night,
I think. I don't know what the Bells would say to
that. Poor little feet. How cold they are!"

"Oh they're warmer now!" exclaimed the child.
"They're quite warm now!"

"No, no, no," said Meg. "We haven't rubbed 'em
half enough. We're so busy. So busy! And when
they're done, we'll brush out the damp hair; and when
that's done, we'll bring some colour to the poor pale
face with fresh water; and when that's done we'll be
so gay, and brisk, and happy — "

The child, in a burst of sobbing, clasped her round
the neck; caressed her fair cheek with its hand; and
said, "Oh Meg! oh dear Meg!"

Toby's blessing could have done no more. AVho
could do more!

"Why father!" cried Meg, after a pause.

"Here I am, and here I go, my dear!" said
Trotty.

THE CHIMES. 165

"Good Gracious me!" cried Meg. "He's crazy!
He's put the dear child's bonnet on the kettle, and
hung the lid behind the door!"

"I didn't go to do it, my love," said Trotty, hastily
repairing this mistake. "Meg, my dear?"

Meg looked towards him and saw that he had
elaborately stationed himself behind the chair of their
male visitor, where with many mysterious gestures he
was holding up the sixpence he had earned.

"I see, my dear," said Trotty, "as I was coming in,
half an ounce of tea lying somewhere on the stairs;
and I'm pretty sure there was a bit of bacon too. As
I don't remember where it was, exactly, I'll go myself
and try to find 'em."

With this inscrutable artifice, Toby withdrew to
purchase the viands he had spoken of, for ready money,
at I^.Irs. Chickenstalker's; and presently came back,
pretending that he had not been able to find them, at
first, in the dark.

"But here they are at last," said Trotty, setting out
the tea-things, "all correct! I was pretty sure it was
tea, and a rasher. So it is. Meg my Pet, if you'll
-just make the tea, while your unworthy father toasts
the bacon, we shall be ready, immediate. It's a curious
circumstance," said Trotty, proceeding in his cookery,
with the assistance of the toasting-fork, "curious, but
well known to my friends, that I never care, myself,
for rashers, nor for tea. I like to see other people
enjoy 'em," said Trotty, speaking very loud, to impress
the fact upon his guest, "but to me, as food, they're
disagreeable."

Yet Trotty sniffed the savour of the hissing bacon
— ah! — as if he liked it; and when he poured the

I 66 THE CHIMES.

boiling water in the tea-pot, looked lovingly down into
the depths of that snug caldron, and suffered the
fragrant steam to curl about his nose, and wreathe his
head and face in a thick cloud. However, for all this,
he neither ate nor drank, except at the very beginning,
a mere morsel for form's sake, which he appeared to
eat with infinite relish, but declared was perfectly un-
interesting to him.

No. Trotty's occupation was, to see ^Vill Fern and
Lilian eat and drink; and so was Meg's. And never
did spectators at a city dinner or court banquet find
such high delight in seeing others feast: although it
were a monarch or a pope: as those two did, in look-
ing on that night. Meg smiled at Trotty, Trotty laughed
at Meg. Meg shook her head and made belief to clap
her hands, applauding Trotty; Trotty conveyed, in
dumb-show, unintelligible narratives of how and when
and where he had found their visitors, to Meg; and
they were happy. Very happy.

"Although," thought Trotty, sorrowfully, as he
watched Meg's face; "that match is broken off, I
see!'^

"Now, I'll tell you what," said Trotty after tea.
"The little one, she sleeps with Meg, I know."

"With good Meg!" cried the child, caressing her.
"With Meg."

"That's right," said Trotty. "And I shouldn't
wonder if she kiss Meg's father, won't she? /'m Meg's
father."

Mightily delighted Trotty was, when the child went
timidly towards him, and having kissed him, fell back
upon Meg again.

"She's as sensible as Solomon," said Trotty. "Here

THE CHIMES. 167

we come, and here we — no, we don't — I don't mean
that — I — what was I saying, Meg, my precious?"

Meg looked towards their guest, who leaned upon
her chair, and with his face turned from her, fondled
the child's head, half hidden in her lap.

"To be sure," said Toby. "To be sure! I don't
know what I'm rambling on about, to-night. My wits
are wool-gathering, I think. Will Fern, you come
along with me. You're tired to death, and broken
down for want of rest. You come along with me."

The man still played with the child's curls, still
leaned upon Meg's chair, still turned away his face.
He didn't speak, but in his rough coarse fingers,
clenching and expanding in the fair hair of the child,
there was an eloquence that said enough.

"Yes, yes," said Trotty, answering unconsciously
what he saw expressed in his daughter's face. "Take
her with you, Meg. Get her to-bed. There! Now
Will, I'll show you where you lie. It's not much of a
place: only a loft; but, having a loft, I always say, is
one of the great conveniences of living in a mews;
and till this coach-house and stable gets a better let,
we live here cheap. There's plenty of sweet hay up
there, belonging to a neighbour; and it's as clean as
hands, and Meg, can make it. Cheer up! Don't give
way. A new heart for a New Year, always!"

The hand released from the child's hair, had fallen,
trembling, into Trotty's hand. So Trotty, talking with-
out intermission, led him out as tenderly and easily as
if he had been a child himself

Returning before Meg, he listened for an instant
at the door of her little chamber; an adjoining room.
The child was murmuring a simple Prayer before lying

1 68 THE CHIMES.

down to sleep; and when she had remembered Meg's
name, "Dearly, Dearly" — so her words ran — Trotty
heard her stop and ask for his.

It was some short time before the foolish little old
fellow could compose himself to mend the fire, and
draw his chair to the warm hearth. But when he had
done so, and had trimmed the light, he took his news-
paper from his pocket, and began to read. Carelessly
at first, and skimming up and down the columns; but
with an earnest and a sad attention, very soon.

For this same dreaded paper re-directed Trotty's
thoughts into the channel they had taken all that day,
and which the day's events had so marked out and
shaped. His interest in the two wanderers had set
him on another course of thinking, and a happier one,
for the time; but being alone again, and reading of
the crimes and violences of the people, he relapsed
into his former train.

In this mood he came to an account (and it was
not the first he had ever read) of a woman who had
laid her desperate hands not only on her own life but
on that of her young child. A crime so terrible, and
so revolting to his soul, dilated with the love of Meg,
that he let the journal drop, and fell back in his chair,
appalled!

"Unnatural and cruel!" Toby cried. "Unnatural
and cruel! None but people who were bad at heart,
born bad, who had no business on the earth, could do
such deeds. It's too true, all I've heard to-day; too
just, too full of proof We're Bad!"

The Chimes took up the words so suddenly — burst
out so loud, and clear, and sonorous — that the Bells
seemed to strike him in his chair.

THE CHIMES. 169

And what was that, they said?

"Toby Veck, Toby Veck, waiting for you Toby!
Toby Veck, Toby Veck, waiting for you Toby! Come
and see us, come and see us, Drag him to us, drag
him to us, Haunt and hunt him, haunt and hunt him,
Break his slumbers, break his skunbers! Toby Veck,
Toby Veck, door open wide Toby, Toby Veck, Toby
Veck, door open wide Toby — " then fiercely back to
their impetuous strain again, and ringing in the very
bricks and plaster on the walls.

Toby listened. Fancy, fancy! His remorse for
having run away from them that afternoon! No, no.
Nothing of the kind. Again, again, and yet a dozen
times again. "Haunt and hunt him, haunt and hunt
him. Drag him to us, drag him to us!" Deafening the
whole town!

"Meg," said Trotty softly: tapping at her door.
"Do you hear anything?"

"I hear the Bells, father. Surely they're very loud
to-night."

"Is she asleep?" said Toby, making an excuse for
peeping in.

"So peacefully and happily! I can't leave her yet
though, father. Look how she holds my hand!"

"Meg!" whispered Trotty. "Listen to the Bells!"

She listened, with her face towards him all the
time. But it underwent no change. She didn't under-
stand them.

Trotty withdrew, resumed his seat by the fire, and
once more listened by himself. He remained here a
little time.

It was impossible to bear it; their energy was
dreadful.

170 THE CHIMES.

"If the tower-door is really open," said Toby, hastily
laying aside his apron, but never thinking of his hat,
"what's to hinder me from going up into the steeple
and satisfying myself? If it's shut, I don't want any
other satisfaction. That's enough."

He was pretty certain as he slipped out quietly into
the street that he should find it shut and locked, for
he knew the door well, and had so rarely seen it open,
that he couldn't reckon above three times in all. It
was a low arched portal, outside the church, in a dark
nook behind a column; and had such great iron hinges,
and such a monstrous lock, that there was more hinge
and lock than door.

But what was his astonishment when, coming bare-
headed to the church; and putting his hand into this
dark nook, with a certain misgiving that it might be
unexpectedly seized, and a shivering propensity to drav/
it back again; he found that the door, which opened
outwards, actually stood ajar!

He thought, on the first surprise, of going back; or
of getting a light, or a companion; but his courage
aided him immediately, and he determined to ascend
alone.

"What have I to fear?" said Trotty. "It's a church!
Besides, the ringers may be there, and have forgotten
to shut the door."

So he went in, feeling his way as he went, like a
blind man; for it was very dark. And very quiet, for
the chimes were silent.

The dust from the street had blown into the re-
cess; and lying there, heaped up, made it so soft and
velvet-like to the foot, that there was something startling
even in that. The narrow stair was so close to the

THE CHIMES. 17 I

door, too, that he stumbled at the very first; and
shutting the door upon himself, by striking it with his
foot, and causing it to rebound back heavily, he couldn't
open it again.

This was another reason, however, for going on.
Trotty groped his way, and went on. Up, up, up,
and round and round; and up, up, up; higher, higher,
higher up!

It was a disagreeable staircase for that groping
work; so low and narrow, that his groping hand was
always touching something; and it often felt so like a
man or ghostly figure standing up erect and making
room for him to pass without discovery, that he would
rub the smooth wall upward searching for its face, and
downward searching for its feet, while a chill tingling
crept all over him. Twice or thrice, a door or niche
broke the monotonous surface; and then it seemed a
gap as wide as the whole church; as he felt on the
brink of an abyss, and going to tumble headlong down,
until he found the wall again.

Still up, up, up; and round and round; and up,
up, up; higher, higher, higher up!

At length the dull and stifling atmosphere began
to freshen: presently to feel quite windy: presently it
blew so strong, that he could hardly keep his legs.
But he got to an arched window in the tower, breast
high, and holding tight, looked down upon the house-
tops, on the smoking chimneys, on the blurr and blotch
of lights (towards the place where Meg was wondering
where he was and calling to him perhaps), all kneaded
up together in a leaven of mist and darkness.

This was the belfry, where the ringers came. He
had caught hold of one of the frayed ropes which

172 THE CHIMES.

hung down through apertures in the oaken roof. At
first he started, thinking it was hair; then trembled at
the very thought of waking the deep Bell. The Bells
themselves were higher. Higher, Trotty, in his fascina-
tion, or in working out the spell upon him, groped his
way. By ladders now and toilsomely, for it was steep,
and not too certain holding for the feet.

Up, up, up; and climb and clamber; up, up, up;
higher, higher, higher up!

Until, ascending through the floor, and pausing
with his head just raised above its beams, he came
among the Bells. It was barely possible to make out
their great shapes in the gloom; but there they were.
Shadowy, and dark, and dumb.

A heavy sense of dread and loneliness fell in-
stantly upon him, as he climbed into this airy nest of
stone and metal. His head Avent round and round.
He listened and then raised a wild "Halloa!"

Halloa! was mournfully protracted by the echoes.

Giddy, confused, and out of breath, and frightened,
Toby looked about him vacantly, and sunk down in
a swoon.

THIRD QUARTER.

Black are the brooding clouds and troubled the
deep waters, when the Sea of Thought, first heaving
from a calm, gives up its Dead. Monsters uncouth
and wild, arise in premature, imperfect resurrection;
the several parts and shapes of different things are
joined and mixed by chance; and when, and how, and
by what wonderful degrees, each separates from each,

THE CHIMES. 173

and every sense and object of the mind resumes its
usual form and lives again, no man — though every
man is every day the casket of this type of the Great
Mystery — can tell.

So, when and how the darkness of the night-black
steeple changed to shining light; when and how the
solitary tower was peopled with a myriad figures;
when and how the whispered "Haunt and hunt him,"
breathing monotonously through his sleep or swoon,
became a voice exclaiming in the waking ears of
Trotty, "Break his slumbers;" when and how he
ceased to have a sluggish and confused idea that such
things were, companioning a host of others that were
not; there are no dates or means to tell. But, awake,
and he standing on his feet upon the boards where he
had lately lain, he saw this Goblin Sight.

He saw the tower, whither his charmed footsteps
had brought him, swarming with dwarf phantoms,
spirits, elfin creatures of the Bells. He saw them
leaping, flying, dropping, pouring from the Bells with-
out a pause. He saw them, round him on the ground;
above him, in the air, clambering from him, by the
ropes below; looking down upon him, from the mas-
sive iron-girded beams; peeping in upon him, through
the chinks and loopholes in the walls; spreading away
and away from him in enlarging circles, as the water
ripples give place to a huge stone that suddenly
comes plashing in among them. He saw them, of all
aspects and all shapes. He saw them ugly, handsome,
crippled, exquisitely formed. He saw them young, he
saw them old, he saw them kind, he saw them cruel,
he saw them merry, he saw them grim; he saw them
dance, and heard them sing; he saw them tear their

174 "^'^^ CHIMES.

hair, and heard them howl. He saw the air thick
with them. He saw them come and go, incessantly.
He saw them riding downward, soaring upward, sail-
ing off afar, perching near at hand, all restless and all
violently active. Stone, and brick, and slate, and tile,
became transparent to him as to them. He saw them
in the houses, busy at the sleepers' beds. He saw
them soothing people in their dreams; he saw them
beating them with knotted whips; he saw them yelling
in their ears; he saw them playing softest music on
their pillows; he saw them cheering some with the
songs of birds and the perfume of flowers; he saw
them flashing awful faces on the troubled rest of
others, from enchanted mirrors which they carried in
their hands.

He saw these creatures, not only among sleeping
men but waking also, active in pursuits irreconcileable
with one another, and possessing or assuming natures
the most opposite. He saw one buckling on innumer-
able wings to increase his speed; another loading him-
self with chains and weights, to retard his. He saw
some putting the hands of clocks forward, some
putting the hands of clocks backward, some endea-
vouring to stop the clock entirely. He saw them
representing, here a marriage ceremony, there a funeral;
in this chamber an election, in that a ball; he saw,
everywhere, restless and untiring motion.

Bewildered by the host of shifting and extra-
ordinary figures, as well as by the uproar of the
Bells, which all this while were ringing, Trotty clung
to a wooden pillar for support, and turned his white
face here and there, in mute and stunned astonish-
ment.

THE CHIMES. I 7 5

As lie gazed, the Chimes stopped. Instantaneous
change! The whole swarm fainted; their forms col-
lapsed, their speed deserted themj they sought to fly,
but in the act of falling died and melted into air. No
fresh supply succeeded them. One straggler leaped
down pretty briskly from the surface of the Great
Bell, and alighted on his feet, but he was dead and
gone before he could turn round. Some few of the
late company who had gambolled in the tov/er, re-
mained there, spinning over and over a little longer:
but these became at every turn more faint, and few,
and feeble, and soon went the way of the rest. The
last of all was one small hunchback, who had got
into an echoing corner, where he twirled and twirled,
and floated by himself a long time; showing such
perseverance, that at last he dwindled to a leg and
even to a foot, before he finally retired; but he vanished
in the end, and then the tower was silent.

Then and not before, did Trotty see in every Bell
a bearded figure of the bulk and stature of the Bell —
incomprehensibly, a figure and the Bell itself. Gigantic,
grave, and darkly watchful of him, as he stood rooted
to the ground.

Mysterious and awful figures! Resting on nothing;
poised in the night air of the tower, with their draped
and hooded heads merged in the dim roof; motionless
and shadowy. Shadowy and dark, although he saw
them by some light belonging to themselves — none
else was there — each with its muffled hand upon its
goblin mouth.

He could not plunge down wildly through the
opening in the floor; for, all power of motion had
deserted him. Otherwise he would have done so —

176 THE CHIMES.

aye, would have thrown himself, head-foremost, from
the steeple-top, rather than have seen them watching
him with eyes that would have waked and watched
although the pupils had been taken out.

Again, again, the dread and terror of the lonely
place, and of the wild and fearful night that reigned
there, touched him like a spectral hand. His distance
from all help; the long, dark, winding, ghost-be-
leaguered way that lay between him and the earth on
M'hich men lived; his being high, high, high, up there,
where it had made him dizzy to see the birds fly in
the day; cut off from all good people, who at such
an hour were safe at home and sleeping in their beds;
all this struck coldly through him, not as a reflection
but a bodily sensation. Meantime his eyes and
thoughts and fears, were fixed upon the watchful
figures: which, rendered unlike any figures of this
world by the deep gloom and shade enwrapping and
enfolding them, as well as by their looks and forms
and supernatural hovering above the floor, were never-
theless as plainly to be seen as were the stalwart
oaken frames, cross-pieces, bars and beams, set up
there to support the Bells. These hemmed them, in
a very forest of hewn timber; from the entanglements,
intricacies, and depths of which, as from among the
boughs of a dead wood blighted for their Phantom
use, they kept their darksome and unwinking watch.

A blast of air — how cold and shrill! came moan-
ing through the tower. As it died away, the Great
Bell, or the Goblin of the Great Bell, spoke.

"What visitor is this!" it said. The voice was low
and deep, and Trotty fancied ,that it sounded in the
other figures as well.

THE CHIMES. 177

"I thought my name was called by the Chimes!"
said Trotty, raising his hands in an attitude of suppli-
cation. "I hardly know why I am here, or how I
came. I have listened to the Chimes these many
years. They have cheered me often."

"And you have thanked them?" said the Bell.

"A thousand times!" cried Trotty.

"How?"

"I am a poor man," faltered Trotty, "and could
only thank them in words."

"And always so?" inquired the Goblin of the Bell.
"Have you never done us wrong in words?"

"No!" cried Trotty eagerly.

"Never done us foul, and false, and wicked wrong,
in words?" pursued the Goblin of the Bell.

Trotty was about to answer, "Never!" But he
stopped, and was confused.

"The voice of Time," said the Phantom, "cries to
man, Advance! Time is for his advancement and
improvem.ent; for his greater worth, his greater hap-
piness, his better life; his progress onward to that
goal within its knowledge and its view, and set there,
in the period when Time and He began. Ages of
darkness, wickedness, and violence, have come and
gone — millions uncountable, have suffered, lived, and
died — to point the way before him. Who seeks to
turn him back, or stay him on his course, arrests a
mighty engine which will strike the meddler dead; and
be the fiercer and the wilder, ever, for its momentary
check!"

"I never did so to my knowledge, sir," said Trotty.
"It was quite by accident if I did. I wouldn't go to
do it, I'm sure."

A Christmas Carol, etc, 13

178 TPIE CHBIES.

"Who puts into the mouth of Time, or of its ser-
vants," said the Goblin of the Bell, "a cry of lamenta-
tion for days which have had their trial and their failure,
and have left deep traces of it which the blind may
see — a cry that only serves the present time, by show-
ing men how much it needs their help when any ears
can listen to regrets for such a past — who does this,
does a wrong. And you have done that wi-ong to us,
the Chimes."

Trotty's first excess of fear was gone. But he had
felt tenderly and gratefully towards the Bells, as you
have seen; and when he heard himself arraigned as
one who had offended them so weightily, his heart was
touched with penitence and grief.

"If you knew," said Trotty, clasping his hands
earnestly — "or perhaps you do know — if you know
how often you have kept me company; how often you
have cheered me up when I've been low; how you
were quite the plaything of my little daughter Meg
(almost the only one she ever had) when first her
mother died, and she and me were left alone; you
won't bear malice for a hasty word!"

"Who hears in us, the Chimes, one note bespeaking
disregard, or stern regard, of any hope, or joy, or pain,
or sorrow, of the many-sorrowed throng; who hears us
make response to any creed that gauges human pas-
sions and affections, as it gauges the amount of miser-
able food on which humanity may pine and wither;
does us wrong. That wrong you have done us!" said
the Bell.

"I have!" said Trotty. "Oh forgive me!"

"Who hears us echo the dull vermin of the earth:
the Putters Down of crushed and broken natures,

THE CHIMES. 179

formed to be raised up higher than such maggots of
the time can crawl or can conceive," pursued the
Goblin of the Bell; "who does so, does us wrong. And
you have done us wrong!"

"Not meaning it," said Trotty. "In my ignorance.
Not meaning it!"

"Lastly, and most of all," pursued the Bell "Who
turns his back upon the fallen and disfigured of his
kind; abandons them as vile; and does not trace and
track with pitying eyes the unfenced precipice by which
they fell from good — grasping in their fall some tufts
and shreds of that lost soil, and clinging to them still
when bruised and dying in the gulf below; does wrong
to Heaven and man, to time and to eternity. And
you have done that wrong!"

"Spare me," cried Trotty falling on his knees; "for
Mercy's sake!"

"Listen!" said the Shadow.

"Listen!" cried the other Shadows.

"Listen!" said a clear and child-like voice, which
Trotty thought he recognised as having heard before.

The organ sounded faintly in the church below.
Swelling by degrees, the melody ascended to the roof,
and filled the choir and nave. Expanding more and
more, it rose up, up; up, up; higher, higher, higher up;
awakening agitated hearts within the burly piles of
oak, the hollow bells, the iron-bound doors, the stairs
of solid stone; until the tower w^alls were insufficient
to contain it, and it soared into the sky.

No w^onder that an old man's breast could not con-
tain a sound so vast and mighty. It broke from that
weak prison in a rush of tears; and Trotty put his
hands before his face.

12*

l80 THE CHIMES.

"Listen!" said the Shadow.

"Listen!" said the other Shadows.

"Listen!" said the child's voice.

A solemn strain of blended voices, rose into the
tower.

It was a very low and mournful strain — a Dirge —
and as he listened, Trotty heard his child among the
singers.

"She is dead!" exclaimed the old man. "Meg is
dead! Her Spirit calls to me. I hear it!"

"The Spirit of your child bewails the dead, and
mingles with the dead — dead hopes, dead fancies, dead
imaginings of youth," returned the Bell, "but she is
living. Learn from her life, a living truth. Learn
from the creature dearest to your heart, how bad the
bad are born. See every bud and leaf plucked one
by one from off the fairest stem, and know how bare
and wretched it may be. Follow her! To despera-
tion!"

Each of the shadowy figures stretched its right arm
forth, and pointed downward.

"The Spirit of the Chimes is your companion," said
the figure. "Go! It stands behind you!"

Trotty turned, and saw — the child? The child Will
Fern had carried in the street; the child whom Meg
had watched, but now, asleep!

"I carried her myself, to-night," said Trotty. "In
these arms!"

"Show him what he calls himself," said the dark
figures, one and all.

The tower opened at his feet. He looked down,
and beheld his own form, lying at the bottom, on the
outside: crushed and motionless.

THE CHIMES. l8l

"No more a living man!" cried Trotty. "Dead!"

"Dead!" said the figures all together.

"Gracious Heaven! And the New Year — "

"Past," said the figures.

"What!" he cried, shuddering. "I missed my way,
and coming on the outside of this tower in the dark,
fell down — a year ago?"

"Nine years ago!" replied the figures.

As they gave the answer, they recalled their out-
stretched hands; and where their figures had been,
there the Bells were.

And they rung; their time being come again. And
once again, vast multitudes of phantoms sprung into
existence; once again, were incoherently engaged, as
they had been before; once again, faded on the stop-
ping of the Chimes; and dwindled into nothing.

"What are these?" he asked his guide. "If I am
not mad, what are these?"

"Spirits of the Bells. Their sound upon the air,"
returned the child. "They take such shapes and occu-
pations as the hopes and thoughts of mortals, and the
recollections they have stored up, give them."

"And you," said Trotty wildly. "What are you?"

"Hush, hush!" returned the child. "Look here!"

In a poor, mean room; working at the same kind of
embroidery, which he had often, often, seen before her;
Meg, his own dear daughter, was presented to his view.
He made no effort to imprint his kisses on her face;
he did not strive to clasp her to his loving heart; he
knew that such endearments were, for him, no more.
But, he held his trembling breath, and brushed away
the blinding tears, that he might look upon her; that
he might only see her.

1 82 THE CHIMES.

Ah! Changed. Changed. The light of the clear
eye, how dimmed. The bloom, how faded from the
cheek. Beautiful she was, as she had ever been, but
Hope, Hope, Hope, oh where was the fresh Hope that
had spoken to him like a voice!

She looked up from her work, at a companion.
Following her eyes, the old man started back.

In the woman grown, he recognised her at a glance.
In the long silken hair, he saw the self-same curls;
around the lips, the child's expression lingering still.
See ! In the eyes, now turned inquiringly on Meg, there
shone the very look that scanned those features when
he brought her home!

Then what was this, beside him!

Looking with awe into its face, he saw a something
reigning there: a lofty something, undefined and in-
distinct, which made it hardly more than a remem-
brance of that child — as yonder figure might be — yet
it was the same: the same: and wore the dress.

Hark. They were speaking!

"Meg," said Lilian, hesitating. "How often you
raise your head from your work to look at me!"

"Are my looks so altered, that they frighten you?"
asked Meg.

"Nay, dear! But you smile at that yourself! Why
not smile when you look at me, Meg?"

"I do so. Do I not?" she answered: smiHng on her.

"Now you do," said Lilian, "but not usually. When
you think I'm busy, and don't see you, you look so
anxious and so doubtful, that I hardly like to raise my
eyes. There is little cause for smiling in this hard and
toilsome life, but you were once so cheerful."

"Am I not now!" cried Meg, speaking in a tone of

THE CHIMES. 183

strange alarm, and rising to embrace her. "Do /make
our weary life more weary to you, Lilian!"

"You have been the only thing that made it life,"
said Lilian, fervently kissing her; "sometimes the only
thing that made me care to live so, Meg. Such work,
such work! So many hours, so many days, so many
long, long nights of hopeless, cheerless, never-ending
work — not to heap up riches, not to live grandly or
gaily, not to live upon enough, however coarse; but to
earn bare bread; to scrape together just enough to toil
upon, and want upon, and keep alive in us the con-
sciousness of our hard fate! Oh Meg, Meg!" she raised
her voice and twined her arms about her as she spoke,
like one in pain. "How can the cruel world go round,
and bear to look upon such lives!"

"Lilly!" said Meg, soothing her, and putting back
her hair from her wet face. "Why, Lilly! You! So
pretty and so young!"

"Oh Meg!" she interrupted, holding her at arm's-
length, and looking in her face imploringly. "The
worst of all, the worst of all! Strike me old, Meg!
Wither me and shrivel me, and free me from the dread-
ful thoughts that tempt me in my youth!"

Trotty turned to look upon his guide. But, the
Spirit of the child had taken flight. Was gone.

Neither did he himself remain in the same place;
for Sir Joseph Bowley, Friend and Father of the Poor,
held a great festivity at Bowley Hall, in honour of the
natal day of Lady Bowley. And as Lady Bowley had
been born on New Year's Day (which the local news-
papers considered an especial pointing of the finger of
Providence to number One, as Lady Bowley's destined

184 THE CHIMES.

figure in Creation), it was on a New Year's Day that
this festivity took place.

Bowley Hall was full of visitors. The red-faced
gentleman was there. Mr. Filer was there, the great
Alderman Cute was there — Alderman Cute had a sym-
pathetic feeling with great people, and had consider-
ably improved his acquaintance with Sir Joseph Bowley
on the strength of his attentive letter: indeed had be-
come quite a friend of the family since then — and
many guests were there. Trotty's ghost was there, wan-
dering about, poor phantom, drearily; and looking for
its guide.

There was to be a great dinner in the Great Hall.
At which Sir Joseph Bowley, in his celebrated character
of Friend and Father of the Poor, was to make his
great speech. Certain plum puddings were to be eaten
by his Friends and Children in another Hall first; and,
at a given signal. Friends and Children flocking in
among their Friends and Fathers, were to form a
family assemblage, with not one manly eye therein un-
moistened by emotion.

But there was more than this to happen. Even
more than this. Sir Joseph Bowley, Baronet and Member
of Parliament, was to play a match at skittles — real
skittles — with his tenants!

"Which quite reminds one," said Alderman Cute,
"of the days of old King Hal, stout King Hal, bluff
King Hal. Ah. Fine character!"

" Very," said Mr. Filer, dryly. " For marrying women
and murdering 'em. Considerably more than the average
number of wives by the bye."

"You'll marry the beautiful ladies, and not murder
'em, eh?" said Alderman Cute to the heir of Bowley,

THE CHIMES. 1 85

aged twelve. "Sweet boy! We shall have this little
gentleman in Parliament now," said the Alderman, hold-
ing him by the shoulders, and looking as reflective as
he could, "before we know where we are. We shall
hear of his successes at the poll; his speeches in the
house; his overtures from Governments; his brilliant
achievements of all kinds; ah! we shall make our little
orations about him in the common council, I'll be
bound; before we have time to look about us!"

"Oh, the difference of shoes and stockings!" Trotty
thought. But his heart yearned towards the child, for
the love of those same shoeless and stockingless boys,
predestined (by the Alderman) to turn out bad, who
might have been the children of poor Meg.

"Richard," moaned Trotty, roaming among the com-
pany to and fro; "where is he? I can't find Richard!
Where is Richard?"

Not likely to be there, if still alive! But Trotty's
grief and solitude confused him; and he still went
wandering among the gallant company, looking for his
guide, and saying, "Where is Richard? Show me
Richard!"

He was wandering thus, when he encountered Mr.
Fish, the confidential Secretary: in great agitation.

"Bless my heart and soul ! " cried Mr. Fish. " Where's
Alderman Cute? Has anybody seen the Alderman?"

Seen the Alderman? Oh dear! Who could ever
help seeing the Alderman? He was so considerate, so
affable, he bore so much in mind the natural desire of
folks to see him, that if he had a fault, it was the being
constantly On View. And wherever the great people
were, there, to be sure, attracted by the kindred sym-
pathy between great souls, was Cute.

I 86 THE CHIMES.

Several voices cried that he was in the circle round
Sir Joseph. Mr. Fish made way there; found him; and
took him secretly into a window near at hand. Trotty
joined them. Not of his own accord. He felt that his
steps were led in that direction.

"My dear Alderman Cute," said Mr. Fish. "A little
more this way. The most dreadful circumstance has
occurred. I have this moment received the intelligence.
I think it will be best not to acquaint Sir Joseph with
it till the day is over. You understand Sir Joseph,
and will give me your opinion. The most frightful and
deplorable event!"

"Fish!" returned the Alderman. "Fish! My good
fellow, what is the matter? Nothing revolutionary, I
hope! No — no attempted interference with the magis-
trates?"

"Deedles, the banker," gasped the Secretary.
"Deedles, Brothers — who was to have been here to-
day— high in office in the Goldsmiths' Company — "

"Not stopped!" exclaimed the Alderman. "It
can't be!"

"Shot himself."

"Good God!"

"Put a double-barrelled pistol to his mouth, in his
own counting-house," said Mr. Fish, "and blew his
brains out. No motive. Princely circumstances!"

"Circumstances!" exclaimed the Alderman. "A
man of noble fortune. One of the most respectable
of men. Suicide, Mr. Fish! By his own hand!"

"This very morning," returned Mr. Fish.

"Oh the brain, the brain!" exclaimed the pious
Alderman, lifting up his hands. "Oh the nerves, the
nerves; the mysteries of this machine called INIan!

THE CHIMES. 1 87

Oh the little that unhinges it: poor creatures that we
are! Perhaps a dinner, Mr. Fish. Perhaps the conduct
of his son, who, I have heard, ran very wild, and was
in the habit of drawing bills upon him without the
least authority! A most respectable man. One of the
most respectable men I ever knew! A lamentable in-
stance, Llr. Fish. A public calamity! I shall make a
point of wearing the deepest mourning. A most re-
spectable man! But there is One above. We must
submit, Mr. Fish. We must submit!"

What, Alderman! No word of Putting Down?
Remember, Justice, your high moral boast and pride.
Come, Alderman! Balance those scales. Throw me
into this, the empty one, no dinner, and Nature's founts
in some poor woman, dried by starving misery and
rendered obdurate to claims for which her offspring
has authority in holy mother Eve. Weigh me the two,
you Daniel, going to judgment, when your day shall
come! Weigh them, in the eyes of suffering thousands,
audience (not unmindful) of the grim farce you play.
Or supposing that you strayed from your five wits —
it's not so far to go, but that it might be — and laid
hands upon that throat of yours, warning your fellows
(if you have a fellow) how they croak their comfortable
wickedness to raving heads and stricken hearts. What
then?

The words rose up in Trotty's breast, as if they had
been spoken by some other voice within him. Alder-
man Cute pledged himself to Mr. Fish that he would
assist him in breaking the melancholy catastrophe to
Sir Joseph, when the day was over. Then, before they
parted, wringing Mr. Fish's hand in bitterness of soul,
he said, "The most respectable of men!" And added

I 88 THE CHIMES.

that he hardly knew (not even he), why such afflictions
were allowed on earth.

"It's almost enough to make one think, if one
didn't know better," said Alderman Cute, "that at
times some motion of a capsizing nature was going on
in things, which affected the general economy of the
social fabric. Deedles, Brothers!"

The skittle-playing came off with immense success.
Sir Joseph knocked the pins about quite skilfully;
Master Bowley took an innings at a shorter distance
also; and everybody said that now, when a Baronet
and the Son of a Baronet played at skittles, the
country was coming round again, as fast as it could
come.

At its proper time, the Banquet was served up.
Trotty involuntarily repaired to the Hall with the rest,
for he felt himself conducted thither by some stronger
impulse than his own free will. The sight was gay in
the extreme; the ladies were very handsome; the
visitors delighted, cheerful, and good-tempered. When
the lower doors were opened, and the people flocked
in, in their rustic dresses, the beauty of the spectacle
was at its height; but Trotty only murmured more
and more. "Where is Richard! He should help and
comfort her! I can't see Richard!"

There had been some speeches made; and Lady
Bowley's health had been proposed; and Sir Joseph
Bowley had returned thanks, and had made his great
speech, showing by various pieces of evidence that he
was the born Friend and Father, and so forth; and
had given as a Toast, his Friends and Children, and
the Dignity of Labor; when a slight disturbance at
the bottom of the hall attracted Toby's notice. After

THE CHIMES. 1 89

some confusion, noise, and opposition, one man broke
through the rest, and stood forward by himself.

Not Richard. No. But one whom he had thought
of, and had looked for, many times. In a scantier
supply of light, he might have doubted the identity
of that worn man, so old, and grey, and bent; but
with a blaze of lamps upon his gnarled and knotted
head, he knew Will Fern as soon as he stepped forth.

"What is this!" exclaimed Sir Joseph, rising.
"Who gave this man admittance? This is a criminal
from prison! Mr. Fish, sir, will you have the good-
ness— "

"A minute!" said Will Fern. "A minute! My Lady,
you was born on this day along with a New Year.
Get me a minute's leave to speak."

She made some intercession for him. Sir Joseph
took his seat again, with native dignity.

The ragged visitor — for he was miserably dressed —
looked round upon the company, and made his homage
to them with a humble bow.

" Gentlefolks ! " he said. " You've drunk the Labourer.
Look at me!"

"Just come from jail," said Mr. Fish.

"Just come from jail," said Will. "And neither
for the first time, nor the second, nor the third, nor
yet the fourth."

Mr. Filer was heard to remark testily, that four
times was over the average; and he ought to be
ashamed of himself.

"Gentlefolks!" repeated Will Fern. "Look at me!
You see I'm at the worst. Beyond all hurt or harm;
beyond your help; for the time when your kind words
or kind actions could have done me good," — he struck

I go THE CHIMES.

his hand upon his breast, and shook his head, "is
gone, with the scent of last year's beans or clover on
the air. Let me say a word for these," pointing to
the labouring people in the hallj "and when you're
met together, hear the real Truth spoke out for once.'*

"There's not a man here," said the host, "who
would have him for a spokesman."

"Like enough, Sir Joseph. I believe it. Not the
less true, perhaps, is what I say. Perhaps that's a
proof on it. Gentlefolks, I've lived many a year in
this place. You may see the cottage from the sunk
fence over yonder. I've seen the ladies draw it in
their books, a hundred times. It looks well in a picter,
I've heerd say; but there an't weather in picters, and
maybe 'tis fitter for that, than for a place to live in.
Well! I lived there. How hard — how bitter hard, I
lived there, I won't say. Any day in the year, and
every day, you can judge for your own selves."

He spoke as he had spoken on the night when
Trotty found him in the street. His voice was deeper
and more husky, and had a trembling in it now and
then; but he never raised it, passionately, and seldom
lifted it above the firm stern level of the homely facts
he stated.

"'Tis harder than you think for, gentlefolks, to
grow up decent, commonly decent, in such a place.
That I growed up a man and not a brute, says some-
thing for me — as I was then. As I am now, there's
nothing can be said for me or done for me. I'm
past it."

"I am glad this man has entered," observed Sir
Joseph, looking round serenely. "Don't disturb him.
It appears to be Ordained. He is an example: a

THE CHIMES. igi

living example. I hope and trust, and confidently
expect, that it will not be lost upon my Friends here."

"I dragged on" said Fern, after a moment's silence,
"somehow. Neither me nor any other man knows
how; but so heavy, that I couldn't put a cheerful face
upon it, or make believe that I was anything but what
I was. Now, gentlemen — you gentlemen that sits at
Sessions — when you see a man with discontent writ
on his face, you says to one another, 'he's suspicious.
I has my doubts,' says you, 'about Will Fern. Watch
that fellow!' I don't say, gentlemen, it ain't quite
nat'ral, but I say 'tis so; and from that hour, what-
ever Will Fern does, or lets alone — all one — it goes
against him."

Alderman Cute stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat-
pockets, and leaning back in his chair, and smiling,
winked at a neighbouring chandelier. As much as to
say, "Of course! I told you so. The common cry!
Lord bless you, we are up to all this sort of thing —
myself and human nature."

"Now, gentlemen," said Will Fern, holding out his
hands, and flushing for an instant in his haggard face.
"See how your laws are made to trap and hunt us
when we're brought to this. I tries to live elsewhere.
And I'm a vagabond. To jail with him! I comes
back here. I goes a nutting in your woods, and
breaks — who don't? — a limber branch or two. To
jail with him! One of your keepers sees me in the
broad day, near my own patch of garden, with a gun.
To jail with him! I has a nat'ral angry word with
that man, when I'm free again. To jail with him! I
cuts a stick. To jail with him! I eats a rotten apple
or a turnip. To jail with him! It's twenty mile

192 THE CHIMES.

away; and coming back I begs a trifle on the road.
To jail with him! At last, the constable, the keeper
— anybody — finds me anywhere, a doing anything.
To jail with him, for he's a vagrant, and a jail-bird
known; and jail's the only home he's got."

The Alderman nodded sagaciously, as who should
say, "A very good home too!"

"Do I say this to serve my cause!" cried Fern.
"Who can give me back my liberty, who can give me
back my good name, who can give me back my in-
nocent niece? Not all the Lords and Ladies in wide
England. But gentlemen, gentlemen, dealing with
other men like me, begin at the right end. Give us,
in mercy, better homes when we're a lying in our
cradles; give us better food when we're a working for
our lives; give us kinder laws to bring us back when
we're a going wrong; and don't set Jail, Jail, Jail,
afore us, everywhere we turn. There an't a conde-
scension you can show the Labourer then, that he
won't take, as ready and as grateful as a man can be;
for, he has a patient, peaceful, willing heart. But you
must put his rightful spirit in him first; for, whether
he's a wreck and ruin such as me, or is like one of
them that stand here now, his spirit is divided from
you at this time. Bring it back, gentlefolks, bring it
back! Bring it back, afore the day comes when even
his Bible changes in his altered mind, and the words
seem to him to read, as they have sometimes read in
my own eyes — in Jail: 'Whither thou goest, I can
Not go; where thou lodgest, I do Not lodge; thy people
are Not my people; Nor thy God my God!'"

A sudden stir and agitation took place in the Hall.
Trotty thought at first, that several had risen to eject

THE CHIMES. 193

the man; and hence this change in its appearance.
But, another moment showed him that the room and
all the company had vanished from his sight, and that
his daughter was again before him, seated at her work.
But in a poorer, meaner garret than before; and with
no Lilian by her side.

The frame at which she had worked, was put away
upon a shelf and covered up. The chair in which she
had sat, was turned against the wall. A history was
written in these little things, and in Meg's grief-worn
face. Oh! who could fail to read it!

Meg strained her eyes upon her work until it was
too dark to see the threads; and when the night closed
in, she lighted her feeble candle and worked on. Still
her old father was invisible about her; looking down
upon her; loving her — how dearly loving her! — and
talking to her in a tender voice about the old times,
and the Bells. Though he knew, poor Trotty, though
he knew she could not hear him.

A great part of the evening had worn away, when
a knock came at her door. She opened it. A man
was on the threshold. A slouching, moody, drunken
sloven, wasted by intemperance and vice, and with his
matted hair and unshorn beard in wild disorder; but,
with some traces on him, too, of having been a man
of good proportion and good features in his youth.

He stopped until he had her leave to enter; and
she, retiring a pace or two from the open door, silently
and sorrowfully looked upon him. Trotty had his
wish. He saw Richard.

"May I come in, Margaret?"

"Yes! Come in. Come in!"

It was well that Trotty knew him before he spoke;

A Christmas Carol, etc. 1 3

194 "^^^^ CHIMES.

for with any doubt remaining on his mind, the harsh
discordant voice would have persuaded him that it was
not Richard but some other man.

There were but two chairs in the room. She gave
hers, and stood at some short distance from him,
waiting to hear what he had to say.

He sat, however, staring vacantly at the floor; with
a lustreless and stupid smile. A spectacle of such
deep degradation, of such abject hopelessness, of such
a miserable downfall, that she put her hands before
her face and turned away, lest he should see how
much it moved her.

Roused by the rustling of her dress, or some such
trifling sound, he lifted his head, and began to speak
as if there had been no pause since he entered.

"Still at work, Margaret? You work late."

"I generally do."

"And early?"

"And early."

"So she said. She said you never tired; or never
owned that you tired. Not all the time you lived
together. Not even when you fainted, between work
and fasting. But I told you that, the last time I
came."

"You did," she answered. "And I implored you
to tell me nothing more; and you made me a solemn
promise, Richard, that you never would."

"A solemn promise," he repeated, with a drivelling
laugh and vacant stare. "A solemn promise. To be
sure. A solemn promise!" Awakening, as it were,
afler a time, in the same manner as before; he said
with sudden animation,

THE CHIMES. 1 95

"How can I help it, Margaret? What am I to do?
She has been to me again!"

"Again!" cried Meg, clasping her hands. "O, does
she think of me so often! Has she been again?"

"Twenty times again," said Richard. "Margaret,
she haunts me. She cornes behind me in the street,
and thrusts it in my hand. I hear her foot upon the
ashes when Fm at my work (ha, ha! that an't often),
and before I can turn my head, her voice is in my ear,
saying, 'Richard, don't look round. For heaven's
love, give her this!' She brings it where I live; she
sends it in letters; she taps at the window and lays
it on the sill. What can I do? Look at it!"

He held out in his hand a little purse, and chinked
the money it enclosed.

"Hide it," said Meg. "Hide it! When she comes
again, tell her, Richard, that I love her in my soul.
That I never lie down to sleep, but I bless her, and
pray for her. That in my solitary work, I never cease
to have her in my thoughts. That she is with me,
night and day. That if I died to-morrow, I would
remember her with my last breath. But, that I cannot
look upon it!"

He slowly recalled his hand, and crushing the
purse together, said with a kind of drowsy thought-
fulness :

"I told her so. I told her so, as plain as words
could speak. IVe taken this gift back and left it at
her door, a dozen times since then. But when she
came at last, and stood before me, face to face, what
could I do?"

"You saw her!" exclaimed Meg. "You saw her!
O, Lilian, my sweet girl! O, Lilian, Lilian!"

196 THE CHIMES.

"I saw her," he went on to say, not answering, but
engaged in the same slow pursuit of his own thoughts.
"There she stood: trembHng! 'How does she look,
Richard? Does she ever speak of me? Is she thinner?
My old place at the table: what's in my old place?
And the frame she taught me our old work on — has
she burnt it, Richard?' There she was. I hear her
say it."

Meg checked her sobs, and with the tears streaming
from her eyes, bent over him to listen. Not to lose a
breath.

With his arms resting on his knees; and stooping
forward in his chair, as if what he said were written
on the ground in some half legible character, which
it was his occupation to decipher and connect; he
went on.

"'Richard, I have fallen very low; and you may
guess how much I have suffered in having this sent
back, when I can bear to bring it in my hand to you.
But you loved her once, even in my memory, dearly.
Others stepped in between you; fears, and jealousies,
and doubts, and vanities, estranged you from her; but
you did love her, even in my memory!' I suppose I
did," he said, interrupting himself for a moment. "I
did! That's neither here nor there. *0 Richard, if
you ever did; if you have any memory for what is
gone and lost, take it to her once more. Once more!
Tell her how I begged and prayed. Tell her how I
laid my head upon your shoulder, where her own head
might have lain, and was so humble to you, Richard.
Tell her that you looked into my face, and saw the
beauty which she used to praise, all gone: all gone:
and in its place, a poor, wan, hollow cheek, that she

THE CHIMES. 1 97

would weep to see. Tell her everything, and take it
back, and she will not refuse again. She will not
have the heart!'"

So he sat musing, and repeating the last words,
until he woke again, and rose.

"You won't take it, Margaret?"

She shook her head, and motioned an entreaty to
him to leave her.

"Good night, Margaret."

"Good night!"

He turned to look upon her; struck by her sorrow,
and perhaps by the pity for himself which trembled in
her voice. It was a quick and rapid action; and for
the moment some flash of his old bearing kindled in
his form. In the next he went as he had come. Nor
did this glimmer of a quenched fire seem to light him
to a quicker sense of his debasement.

In any mood, in any grief, in any torture of the
mind or body, Meg's work must be done. She sat
down to her task, and plied it. Night, midnight. Still
she worked.

She had a meagre fire, the night being very cold;
and rose at intervals to mend it. The Chimes rang
half-past twelve while she was thus engaged; and when
they ceased she heard a gentle knocking at the door.
Before she could so much as wonder who was there,
at that unusual hour, it opened.

O Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look
at this! O Youth and Beauty, blest and blessing all
within your reach, and working out the ends of your
Beneficent Creator, look at this!

She saw the entering figure; screamed its name;
cried "Lilian!"

igS THE CHIMES.

It was swift, and fell upon its knees before her:
clinging to her dress.

"Up, dear! Up! Lilian! My own dearest!"

"Never more, Meg; never more! Here! Here!
Close to you, holding to you, feeling your dear breath
upon my face!"

"Sweet Lilian! Darling Lilian! Child of my heart
— no mother's love can be more tender — lay your
head upon my breast!"

"Never more, Meg. Never more! When I first
looked into your face, you knelt before me. On my
knees before you, let me die. Let it be here!"

"You have come back. My Treasure! We will
live together, work together, hope together, die to-
gether!"

"Ah! Kiss my lips, Meg; fold your arms about
me; press me to your bosom; look kindly on me; but
don't raise me. Let it be here. Let me see the last
of your dear face upon my knees!"

O Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look
at this! O Youth and Beauty, working out the ends
of your Beneficent Creator, look at this!

"Forgive me, Meg! So dear, so dear! Forgive me!
I know you do, I see you do, but say so, Meg!"

She said so, with her lips on Lilian's cheek. And
with her arms twined round — she knew it now — a
broken heart.

"His blessing on you, dearest love. Kiss me once
more ! He sufi"ered her to sit beside His feet, and dry them
with her hair. O Meg, what Mercy and Compassion!"

As she died, the Spirit of the child returning, inno •
cent and radiant, touched the old man with its hand,
and beckoned him away.

THE CHIMES. 1 99

FOURTH QUARTER.

Some new remembrance of the ghostly figures in
the Bells; some faint impression of the ringing of the
Chimes; some giddy consciousness of having seen the
swarm of phantoms reproduced and reproduced until
the recollection of them lost itself in the confusion of
their numbers; some hurried knowledge, how con-
veyed to him he knew not, that more years had passed;
and Trotty, with the Spirit of the child attending him,
stood looking on at mortal company.

Fat company, rosy-cheeked company, comfortable
company. They were but two, but they were red
enough for ten. They sat before a bright fire, with
a small low table between them; and unless the
fragrance of hot tea and muffins lingered longer in
that room than in most others, the table had seen
service very lately. But all the cups and saucers
being clean, and in their proper places in the corner
cupboard; and the brass toasting-fork hanging in its
usual nook, and spreading its four idle fingers out, as
if it wanted to be measured for a glove; there re-
mained no other visible tokens of the meal just finished,
than such as purred and washed their whiskers in the
person of the basking cat, and glistened in the gracious,
not to say the greasy, faces of her patrons.

This cosy couple (married, evidently) had made a
fair division of the fire between them, and sat looking
at the glowing sparks that dropped into the grate;
now nodding off into a doze; now waking up again
when some hot fragment, larger than the rest, came
rattling down, as if the fire were coming with it.

200 THE CHIMES.

It was in no danger of sudden extinction, however;
for it gleamed not only in the little room, and on the
panes of window-glass in the door, and on the curtain
half drawn across them, but in the little shop beyond.
A little shop, quite crammed and choked with the
abundance of its stock; a perfectly voracious little
shop, with a maw as accommodating and full as any
shark's. Cheese, butter, firewood, soap, pickles, matches,
bacon, table-beer, peg-tops, sweetmeats, boys' kites,
bird-seed, cold ham, birch brooms, hearth-stones, salt,
vinegar, blacking, red-herrings, stationery, lard, mush-
room-ketchup, staylaces, loaves of bread, shuttlecocks,
eggs, and slate-pencil; everything was fish that came
to the net of this greedy little shop, and all articles
were in its net. How many other kinds of petty mer-
chandise were there, it would be difficult to say; but
balls of packthread, ropes of onions, pounds of candles,
cabbage-nets, and brushes, hung in bunches from the
ceiling, like extraordinary fruit; while various odd
canisters emitting aromatic smells, established the
veracity of the inscription over the outer door, which
informed the public that the keeper of this little shop
was a licensed dealer in tea, coffee, tobacco, pepper,
and snufi".

Glancing at such of these items as were visible in
the shining of the blaze, and the less cheerful radiance
of two smoky lamps which burnt but dimly in the
shop itself, as though its plethora sat heavy on their
lungs; and glancing, then, at one of the two faces by
the parlour-fire; Trotty had small difficulty in recog-
nising in the stout old lady, Mrs. Chickenstalker:
always incHned to corpulency, even in the days when
he had known her as established in the general

THE CHIMES. 20I

line, and having a small balance against him in her
books.

The features of her companion were less easy to
him. The great broad chin, with creases in it large
enough to hide a finger in; the astonished eyes, that
seemed to expostulate with themselves for sinking
deeper and deeper into the yielding fat of the soft
face; the nose afflicted with that disordered action of
its functions which is generally termed The Snuffles;
the short thick throat and labouring chest, with other
beauties of the like description; though calculated to
impress the memory, Trotty could at first allot to
nobody he had ever known: and yet he had some
recollection of them too. At length, in Mrs. Chicken-
stalker's partner in the general line, and in the crooked
and eccentric line of life, he recognised the former
porter of Sir Joseph Bowley; an apoplectic innocent,
who had connected himself in Trotty's mind with Mrs.
Chickenstalker years ago, by giving him admission to
the mansion where he had confessed his obligations to
that lady, and drawn on his unlucky head such grave
reproach.

Trotty had little interest in a change like this, after
the changes he had seen; but association is very
strong sometimes; and he looked involuntarily behind
the parlour-door, where the accounts of credit cus-
tomers were usually kept in chalk. There was no record
of his name. Some names were there, but they were
strange to him, and infinitely fewer than of old; from
which he argued that the porter was an advocate of
ready money transactions, and on coming into the
business had looked pretty sharp after the Chicken-
stalker defaulters.

202 THE CHIMES.

So desolate was Trotty, and so mournful for the
youth and promise of his blighted child, that it was a
sorrow to him, even to have no place in Mrs. Chicken-
stalker's ledger.

"What sort of a night is it, Anne?" inquired the
former porter of Sir Joseph Bowley, stretching out his
legs before the fire, and rubbing as much of them as
his short arms could reach; with an air that added,
"Here I am if it's bad, and I don't want to go out if
it's good."

"Blowing and sleeting hard," returned his wife;
"and threatening snow. Dark. And very cold."

"I'm glad to think we had muffins," said the former
porter, in the tone of one who had set his conscience
at rest. "It's a sort of night that's meant for muffins.
Likewise crumpets. Also Sally Lunns."

The former porter mentioned each successive kind
of eatable, as if he were musingly summing up his good
actions. After which, he rubbed his fat legs as before,
and jerking them at the knees to get the fire upon
the yet unroasted parts, laughed as if somebody had
tickled him.

"You're in spirits, Tugby, my dear," observed his
wife.

The firm was Tugby, late Chickenstalker.

"No," said Tugby. "No. Not particular. I'm a little
elewated. The muffins came so pat!"

With that he chuckled until he was black in the
face; and had so much ado to become any other
colour, that his fat legs took the strangest excursions
into the air. Nor were they reduced to anything like
decorum until Mrs. Tugby had thumped him violently

THE CHIMES. 203

on the back, and shaken him as if he were a great
bottle.

"Good gracious, goodness, lord-a-mercy bless and
save the man!" cried Mrs. Tugby, in great terror.
"What's he doing?"

Mr. Tugby wiped his eyes, and faintly repeated
that he found himself a little elewated.

"Then don't be so again, that's a dear good soul,"
said Mrs. Tugby, "if you don't want to frighten me
to death, with your struggling and fighting!"

Mr. Tugby said he wouldn't; but, his whole exist-
ence was a fight, in which, if any judgment might be
founded on the constantly-increasing shortness of his
breath, and the deepening purple of his face, he was
always getting the worst of it.

"So it's blowing, and sleeting, and threatening
snow; and it's dark, and very cold, is it, my dear?"
said Mr. Tugby, looking at the fire, and reverting to
the cream and marrow of his temporary elevation.

"Hard weather indeed," returned his wife, shaking
her head.

"Aye, aye! Years," said Mr. Tugby, "are like
Christians in that respect. Some of 'em die hard;
some of 'em die easy. This one hasn't many days to
run, and is making a fight for it. I like him all the
better. There's a customer, my love!"

Attentive to the rattling door, Mrs. Tugby had al-
ready risen.

"Now then!" said that lady, passing out into the
little shop. "What's wanted? Oh! I beg your pardon,
sir, I'm sure. I didn't think it was you."

She made this apology to a gentleman in black,
who, with his wristbands tucked up, and his hat cocked

204 THE CHIMES.

loungingly on one side, and his hands in his pockets,
sat down astride on the table-beer barrel, and nodded
in return.

"This is a bad business up stairs, Mrs. Tugby,'*
said the gentleman. "The man can't live."

"Not the back-attic can't!" cried Tugby, coming
out into the shop to join the conference.

"The back-attic, Mr. Tugby," said the gentleman,
"is coming down stairs fast, and will be below the
basement very soon."

Looking by turns at Tugby and his wife, he sounded
the barrel with his knuckles for the depth of beer,
and having found it, played a tune upon the empty
part,

"The back- attic, Mr. Tugby," said the gentleman:
Tugby having stood in silent consternation for some
time: "is Going."

"Then," said Tugby, turning to his wife, "he must
Go, you know, before he's Gone."

"I don't think you can move him," said the gentle-
man, shaking his head. "I wouldn't take the respon-
sibility of saying it could be done, myself. You had
better leave him where he is. He can't live long."

"It's the only subject," said Tugby, bringing the
butter-scale down upon the counter with a crash, by
weighing his fist on it, "that we've ever had a word
upon; she and me; and look what it comes to! He's
going to die here, after all. Going to die upon the
premises. Going to die in our house!"

"And where should he have died, Tugby!" cried
his wife.

"In the workhouse," he returned. "What are work-
houses made for?"

THE CHIMES. 205

"Not for that," said Mrs. Tugby, with great energy.
"Not for that! Neither did I marry you for that. Don't
think it, Tugby. I won't have it. I won't allow it. I'd
be separated first, and never see your face again.
When my widow's name stood over that door, as it
did for many many years: this house being known as
Mrs. Chickenstalker's far and wide, and never known
but to its honest credit and its good report: when my
widow's name stood over that door, Tugby, I knew
him as a handsome, steady, manly, independent youth;
I knew her as the sweetest-looking, sweetest-tempered
girl, eyes ever saw; I knew her father (poor old creetur,
he fell down from the steeple walking in his sleep,
and killed himself), for the simplest, hardest-working,
childest-hearted man, that ever drew the breath of life;
and when I turn them out of house and home, may
angels turn me out of Heaven. As they would! And
serve me right!"

Her old face, which had been a plump and dimpled
one before the changes which had come to pass, seemed
to shine out of her as she said these words; and when she
dried her eyes, and shook her head and her handker-
chief at Tugby, with an expression of firmness which
it was quite clear was not to be easily resisted, Trotty
said, "Bless her! Bless her!"

Then he listened, with a panting heart, for what
should follow. Knowing nothing yet, but that they
spoke of Meg.

If Tugby had been a little elevated in the parlour,
he more than balanced that account by being not a
little depressed in the shop, where he now stood star-
ing at his wife, without attempting a reply; secretly
conveying, however — either in a fit of abstraction or

206 THE CHIMES.

as a precautionary measure — all the money from the
till into his own pockets, as he looked at her.

The gentleman upon the table-beer cask, who ap-
peared to be some authorised medical attendant upon
the poor, was far too well accustomed, evidently, to
little differences of opinion between man and wife, to
interpose any remark in this instance. He sat softly
whistling, and turning little drops of beer out of the
tap upon the ground, until there was a perfect calm:
when he raised his head, and said to Mrs. Tugby, late
Chickenstalker,

"There's something interesting about the woman,
even now. How did she come to marry him?"

"Why that," said Mrs. Tugby, taking a seat near
him, "is not the least cruel part of her story, sir. You
see they kept company, she and Richard, many years
ago. AVhen they were a young and beautiful couple,
everything was settled, and they were to have been
married on a New Year's Day. But, somehow, Richard
got it into his head, through what the gentlemen told
him, that he might do better, and that he'd soon re-
pent it, and that she wasn't good enough for him, and
that a young man of spirit had no business to be mar-
ried. And the gentlemen frightened her, and made
her melancholy, and timid of his deserting her, and
of her children coming to the gallows, and of its being
wicked to be man and wife, and a good deal more of
it. And in short, they lingered and linge];ed, and their
trust in one another was broken, and so at last was
the match. But the fault was his. She would have
married him, sir, joyfully. I've seen her heart swell,
many times afterwards, when he passed her in a proud
and careless way; and never did a woman grieve more

THE CHIMES. 207

truly for a man, than she for Richard when he first
went wrong."

"Oh! he went wrong, did he?" said the gentleman,
pulling out the vent-peg of the table-beer, and trying
to peep down into the barrel through the hole.

"Well, sir, I don't know that he rightly understood
himself, you see. I think his mind was troubled by
their having broke with one another; and that but for
being ashamed before the gentlemen, and perhaps for
being uncertain too, how she might take it, he'd have
gone through any suffering or trial to have had Meg's
promise, and Meg's hand again. That's my belief He
never said so; more's the pity! He took to drinking,
idling, bad companions: all the fine resources that
were to be so much better for him than the Home
he might have had. He lost his looks, his character,
his health, his strength, his friends, his work: every-
thing!"

"He didn't lose everything, Mrs. Tugby," returned
the gentleman, "because he gained a wife; and I want
to know how he gained her."

"I'm coming to it, sir, in a moment. This went on
for years and years; he sinking lower and lower; she
enduring, poor thing, miseries enough to wear her life
away. At last, he was so cast down, and cast out, that
no one would employ or notice him; and doors were
shut upon him, go where he would. Applying from
place to place, and door to door; and coming for the
hundredth time to one gentleman who had often and
often tried him (he was a good workman to the very
end); that gentleman, who knew his history, said, *I
believe you are incorrigible; there is only one person
in the world who has a chance of reclaiming you; ask

208 THE CHIMES.

me to trust you no more, until she tries to do it'
Something like that, in his anger and vexation."

"Ah!" said the gentleman. "Well?"

"Well sir, he went to her, and kneeled to her; said
it was so; said it ever had been so; and made a prayer
to her to save him."

"And she? — Don't distress yourself, Mrs. Tugby."

"She came to me that night to ask me about liv-
ing here. 'What he was once to me,' she said, 'is
buried in a grave, side by side with what I was to him.
But I have thought of this; and I will make the trial.
In the hope of saving him; for the love of the light-
hearted girl (you remember her) who was to have
been married on a New Year's Day; and for the love
of her Richard.' And she said he had come to her
from Lilian, and Lilian had trusted to him, and she
never could forget that. So they were married; and
when they came home here, and I saw them, I hoped
that such prophecies as parted them when they were
young, may not often fulfil themselves as they did in
this case, or I wouldn't be the makers of them for a
Mine of Gold."

The gentleman got off the cask, and stretched him-
self, observing,

"I suppose he used her ill, as soon as they were
married?"

"I don't think he ever did that," said Mrs. Tugby,
shaking her head and wiping her eyes. "He went on
better for a short time; but, his habits were too old
and strong to be got rid of; he soon fell back a little;
and was falling fast back, when his illness came so
strong upon him. I think he has always felt for her.
I am sure he has. I've seen him, in his crying fits

THE CHIMES. 20g

and tremblings, try to kiss her hand; and I have
heard him call her 'Meg/ and say it was her nine-
teenth birthday. There he has been lying, now, these
weeks and months. Between him and her baby, she
has not been able to do her old work; and by not
being able to be regular, she has lost it, even if she
could have done it. How they have lived, I hardly
know!"

"/ know," muttered Mr. Tugby; looking at the
till, and round the shop, and at his wife; and rolling
his head with immense intelligence. "Like Fighting
Cocks!"

He was interrupted by a cry — a sound of lamenta-
tion— from the upper story of the house. The gentle-
man moved hurriedly to the door.

"My friend," he said, looking back, "you needn't
discuss whether he shall be removed or not. He has
spared you that trouble, I believe."

Saying so, he ran up stairs, followed by Mrs.
Tugby; while Mr. Tugby panted and grumbled after
them at leisure: being rendered more than commonly
shortwinded by the weight of the till, in which there
had been an inconvenient quantity of copper. Trotty,
with the child beside him, floated up the staircase like
mere air.

"Follow her! Follow her! Follow her!" He heard
the ghostly voices in the Bells repeat their words as he
ascended. "Learn it, from the creature dearest to your
heart!"

It was over. It was over. And this was she, her
father's pride and joy! This haggard wretched woman,
weeping by the bed, if it deserved that name, and
pressing to her breast, and hanging down her head

A Christmas Carol, etc. I4

2IO THE CHIMES.

Upon, an infant. Who can tell how spare, how sickly,
and how poor an infant? Who can tell how dear!

"Thank God!" cried Trotty, holding up his folded
hands. "O, God be thanked! She loves her child!"

The gentleman, not otherwise hard-hearted or in-
different to such scenes, than that he saw them every
day, and knew that they were figures of no moment
in the Filer sums — mere scratches in the working of
those calculations — laid his hand upon the heart that
beat no more, and listened for the breath, and said,
"His pain is over. It's better as it is!" Mrs. Tugby
tried to comfort her with kindness. Mr. Tugby tried
philosophy.

"Come, come!" he said, with his hands in his
pockets, "you mustn't give way, you know. That won't
do. You must fight up. What would have become
of me if / had given way when I was porter, and we
had as many as six runaway carriage-doubles at our
door in one night! But, I fell back upon my strength
of mind, and didn't open it!"

Again Trotty heard the voices, saying, "Follow
her!" He turned towards his guide, and saw it rising
from him, passing through the air. "Follow her!" it
said. And vanished.

He hovered round her; sat down at her feet; looked
up into her face for one trace of her old self; listened
for one note of her old pleasant voice. He flitted
round the child: so wan, so prematurely old, so dread-
ful in its gravity, so plaintive in its feeble, mournful,
miserable wail. He almost worshipped it. He clung
to it as her only safeguard; as the last unbroken link
that bound her to endurance. He set his father's
hope and trust on the frail baby; watched her every

THE CHIMES. 211

look upon it as she held ft in her arms; and cried a
thousand times, "She loves it! God be thanked, she
loves it!"

He saw the woman tend her in the night; return
to her when her grudging husband was asleep, and all
was still; encourage her, shed tears with her, set
nourishment before her. He saw the day come, and
the night again; the day, the night; the time go by;
the house of death relieved of death; the room left to
herself and to the child; he heard it moan and cry;
he saw it harass her, and tire her out, and when she
slumbered in exhaustion, drag her back to conscious-
ness, and hold her with its little hands upon the rack;
but she was constant to it, gentle with it, patient with
it. Patient! Was its loving mother in her inmost heart
and soul, and had its Being knitted up with hers as
when she carried it unborn.

All this time, she was in want: languishing away,
in dire and pining want. With the baby in her arms,
she wandered here and there, in quest of occupation;
and with its thin face lying in her lap, and looking up
in hers, did any work for any wretched sum: a day
and night of labour for as many farthings as there
were figures on the dial. If she had quarrelled with
it; if she had neglected it; if she had looked upon it
with a moment's hate; if, in the frenzy of an instant,
she had struck it! No. His comfort was, She loved it
always.

She told no one of her extremity, and wandered
abroad in the day lest she should be questioned by
her only friend: for any help she received from her
hands, occasioned fresh disputes between the good
woman and her husband; and it was new bitterness

14*

212 THE CHIMES.

to be the daily cause of strife and discord, where she
owed so much.

She loved it still. She loved it more and more.
But a change fell on the aspect of her love. One night.

She was singing faintly to it in its sleep, and walk-
ing to and fro to hush it, when her door was softly
opened, and a man looked in.

"For the last time," he said.

"William Fern!"

"For the last time."

He listened like a man pursued: and spoke in
whispers.

"Margaret, my race is nearly run. I couldn't finish
it, without a parting word with you. Without one
grateful word."

"What have you done?" she asked: regarding him
with terror.

He looked at her, but gave no answer.

After a short silence, he made a gesture with his
hand, as if he set her question by; as if he brushed
it aside; and said,

"It's long ago, Margaret, now: but that night is as
fresh in my memory as ever 'twas. We little thought,
then," he added, looking round, "that we should ever
meet like this. Your child, Margaret? Let me have it
in my arms. Let me hold your child."

He put his hat upon the floor, and took it. And
he trembled as he took it, from head to foot.

"Is it a girl?"

"Yes."

He put his hand before its little face.

"See how weak I'm grown, Margaret, when I want
the courage to look at it! Let her be, a moment. I

THE CHIMES. 2I3

won't hurt her. It's long ago, but — What's her
name?"

"Margaret," she answered quickly.

"I'm glad of that," he said. "I'm glad of that!"

He seemed to breathe more freely; and after
pausing for an instant, took away his hand, and
looked upon the infant's face. But covered it again,
immediately.

"Margaret!" he said; and gave her back the child.
"It's Lilian's."

"LiHan's!"

"I held the same face in my arms when Lilian's
mother died and left her."

"When Lilian's mother died and left her!" she
repeated, wildly.

"How shrill you speak! Why do you fix your eyes
upon me so? Margaret!"

She sunk down in a chair, and pressed the infant
to her breast, and wept over it. Sometimes, she
released it from her embrace, to look anxiously in its
face: then strained it to her bosom again. At those
times, when she gazed upon it, then it was that some-
thing fierce and terrible began to mingle with her
love. Then it was, that her old father quailed.

"Follow her!" was sounded through the house.
"Learn it, from the creature dearest to your heart!"

"Margaret," said Fern, bending over her, and
kissing her upon the brow: "I thank you for the last
time. Good night. Good bye! Put your hand in
mine, and tell me you'll forget me from this hour,
and try to think the end of me was here."

"What have you done?" she asked again.

"There'll be a Fire to-night," he said, removing

214 THE CHIMES.

from her. "There'll be Fires this winter-time, to
light the dark nights, East, West, North, and South.
When you see the distant sky red, they'll be blazing.
When you see the distant sky red, think of me no
more; or, if you do, remember what a Hell was
lighted up inside of me, and think you see its flames
reflected in the clouds. Good night. Good bye!"

She called to him; but he was gone. She sat down
stupefied, until her infant roused her to a sense of
hunger, cold, and darkness. She paced the room with
it the livelong night, hushing it and soothing it.
She said at intervals, "Like Lilian, when her mother
died and left her!" Why was her step so quick, her
eye so wild, her love so fierce and terrible, whenever
she repeated those words?

"But, it is Love," said Trotty. "It is Love. She'll
never cease to love it. My poor Meg!"

She dressed the child next morning with unusual
care — ah vain expenditure of care upon such squalid
robes! — and once more tried to find some means of
life. It was the last day of the Old Year. She tried
till night, and never broke her fast. She tried in
vain.

She mingled with an abject crowd, who tarried in
the snow, until it pleased some officer appointed to
dispense the public charity (the lawful charity; not
that, once preached upon a Mount), to call them in,
and question them, and say to this one, "go to such
a place," to that one, "come next week;" to make a
football of another wretch, and pass him here and
there, from hand to hand, from house to house, until
he wearied and lay down to die; or started up and
robbed, and so became a higher sort of criminal.

THE CHIMES. 215

whose claims allowed of no delay. Here, too, she
failed.

She loved her child, and wished to have it lying
on her breast. And that was quite enough.

It was night: a bleak, dark, cutting night: when,
pressing the child close to her for warmth, she arrived
outside the house she called her home. She was so
faint and giddy, that she saw no one standing in the
door-way until she was close upon it, and about to
enter. Then, she recognised the master of the house,
who had so disposed himself — with his person it was
not difficult— as to fill up the whole entry.

"O!" he said softly. "You have come back?"

She looked at the child, and shook her head.

"Don't you think you have lived here long enough
without paying any rent? Don't you think that,
without any money, you've been a pretty constant
customer at this shop, now?" said Mr. Tugby.

She repeated the same mute appeal.

"Suppose you try and deal somewhere else," he
said. "And suppose you provide yourself with an-
other lodging. Come! Don't you think you could
manage it?"

She said, in a low voice, that it was very late.
To-morrow.

"Now I see what you want," said Tugby; "and
what you mean. You know there are two parties in
this house about you, and you delight in setting 'em
by the ears. I don't want any quarrels; I'm speaking
softly to avoid a quarrel; but if you don't go away,
I'll speak out loud, and you shall cause words high
enough to please you. But you sha'n't come in. That
I am determined."

2l6 THE CHIMES.

She put her hair back with her hand, and looked
in a sudden manner at the sky, and the dark lowering
distance.

"This is the last night of an Old Year, and I
won't carry ill-blood and quarrellings and disturbances
into a New One, to please you nor anybody else,"
said Tugby, who was quite a retail Friend and Father.
"I wonder you an't ashamed of yourself, to carry
such practices into a New Year. If you haven't any
business in the world, but to be always giving way,
and always making disturbances between man and
wife, you'd be better out of it. Go along with you."

"Follow her! To desperation!"

Again the old man heard the voices. Looking up,
he saw the figures hovering in the air, and pointing
where she went, down the dark street.

"She loves it!" he exclaimed, in agonised entreaty
for her. "Chimes! she loves it still!"

"Follow her!" The shadows swept upon the track
she had taken, like a cloud.

He joined in the pursuit; he kept close to her; he
looked into her face. He saw the same fierce and
terrible expression mingling with her love, and kindling
in her eyes. He heard her say "Like Lilian! To be
changed like Lilian!" and her speed redoubled.

O, for something to awaken her! For any sight,
or sound, or scent, to call up tender recollections in
a brain on fire ! For any gentle image of the Past, to
rise before her!

"I was her father! I was her father!" cried the
old man, stretching out his hands to the dark shadows
flying on above. "Have mercy on her, and on me!

THE CHIMES. 217

Where does she go? Turn her back! I was her
father!"

But, they only pointed to her, as she hurried on;
and said, "To desperation! Learn it from the creature
dearest to your heart!"

A hundred voices echoed it. The air was made of
breath expended in those words. He seemed to take
them in, at every gasp he drew. They were every-
where , and not to be escaped. And still she hurried
on; the same light in her eyes, the same words in
her mouth; "Like Lilian! To be changed like
Lilian!"

All at once she stopped.

"Now, turn her back!" exclaimed the old man,
tearing his white hair. "My child! Meg! Turn her
back! Great Father, turn her back!"

In her own scanty shawl, she wrapped the baby
warm. With her fevered hands, she smoothed its
limbs, composed its face, arranged its mean attire.
In her wasted arms she folded it, as though she
never would resign it more. And with her dry lips,
kissed it in a final pang, and last long agony of
Love.

Putting its tiny hand up to her neck, and holding
it there, within her dress, next to her distracted heart,
she set its sleeping face against her: closely, steadily,
against her: and sped onward to the river.

To the rolling River, swift and dim, where Winter
Night sat brooding like the last dark thoughts of
many who had sought a refuge there before her.
Where scattered lights upon the banks gleamed sullen,
red and dull , as torches that were burning there , to
show the way to Death. Where no abode of living

2l8 THE CHIMES.

people cast its shadow, on the deep, impenetrable,
melancholy shade.

To the River! To that portal of Eternity, her
desperate footsteps tended with the swiftness of its
rapid waters running to the sea. He tried to touch
her as she passed him, going down to its dark level;
but, the wild distempered form, the fierce and terrible
love, the desperation that had left all human check or
hold behind, swept by him like the wind.

He followed her. She paused a moment on the
brink, before the dreadful plunge. He fell down on
his knees, and in a shriek addressed the figures in the
Bells now hovering above them.

"I have learnt it!" cried the old man. "From
the creature dearest to my heart! O, save her, save
her!'^

He could wind his fingers in her dress; could hold
it! As the words escaped his lips he felt his sense of
touch return, and knew that he detained her.

The figures looked down steadfastly upon him.

"I have learnt it!" cried the old man. "O, have
mercy on me in this hour, if, in my love for her, so
young and good, I slandered Nature in the breasts of
mothers rendered desperate! Pity my presumption,
wickedness, and ignorance, and save her!"

He felt his hold relaxing. They were silent still.

"Have mercy on her!" he exclaimed, "as one in
whom this dreadful crime has sprung from Love per-
verted; from the strongest, deepest Love we fallen
creatures know! Think, what her misery must have
been, when such seed bears such fruit. Heaven meant
her to be good. There is no loving mother on the
earth who might not come to this, if such a life had

THE CHIMES. 219

gone before. O, have mercy on my child, who, even
at this pass, means mercy to her own, and dies her-
self, and perils her immortal soul, to save it!"

She was in his arms. He held her now. His
strength was like a giant's.

"I see the spirit of the Chimes among you!" cried
the old man, singling out the child, and speaking in
some inspiration, which their looks conveyed to him.
"I know that our inheritance is held in store for us
by Time. I know there is a sea of Time to rise one
day, before which all who wrong us or oppress us
will be swept away like leaves. I see it, on the flow!
I know that we must trust and hope, and neither
doubt ourselves, nor doubt the good in one another.
I have learnt it from the creature dearest to my heart.
I clasp her in my arms again. O Spirits, merciful
and good, I take your lesson to my breast along with
her! O Spirits, merciful and good, I am grateful!"

He might have said more; but, the Bells, the old
familiar Bells, his own dear, constant, steady friends,
the Chimes, began to ring the joy-peals for a New
Year: so lustily, so merrily, so happily, so gaily, that
he leapt upon his feet, and broke the spell that
bound him.

"And whatever you do, father," said Meg, "don't
eat tripe again, without asking some doctor whether
it's likely to agree with you; for how you have been
going on, Good gracious!"

She was working with her needle, at the little
table by the fire; dressing her simple gown with rib-
bons for her wedding. So quietly happy, so blooming
and youthful, so full of beautiful promise, that he

220 THE CHIMES.

Uttered a great cry as if it were an Angel in his
house; then flew to clasp her in his arms.

But, he caught his feet in the newspaper, which
had fallen on the hearth; and somebody came rushing
in between them.

"No!" cried the voice of this same somebody; a
generous and jolly voice it was! "Not even you. Not
even you. The first kiss of Meg in the New Year is
mine. Mine! I have been waiting outside the house,
this hour, to hear the Bells and claim it. Meg, my
precious prize, a happy year! A life of happy years,
my darling wife!"

And Richard smothered her with kisses.

You never in all your life saw anything like Trotty
after this. I don't care where you have lived or what
you have seen; you never in all your life saw any-
thing at all approaching him! He sat down in his
chair and beat his knees and cried; he sat down in
his chair and beat his knees and laughed; he sat down
in his chair and beat his knees and laughed and cried
together; he got out of his chair and hugged Meg; he
got out of his chair and hugged Richard; he got out
of his chair and hugged them both at once; he kept
running up to Meg, and squeezing her fresh face be-
tween his hands and kissing it, going from her back-
wards not to lose sight of it, and running up again
like a figure in a magic lantern; and whatever he did,
he was constantly sitting himself down in this chair,
and never stopping in it for one single moment; being
— that's the truth — beside himself with joy.

"And to-morrow's your wedding-day, my pet!"
cried Trotty. "Your real, happy wedding-day!"

"To-day!" cried Richard, shaking hands with him.

THE CHIMES. 221

"To-day. The Chimes are ringing in the New Year.
Hear them!"

They were ringing! Bless their sturdy hearts, they
WERE ringing! Great Bells as they were; melodious,
deep-mouthed, noble Bells; cast in no common metal;
made by no common founder; when had they ever
chimed like that, before !

"But, to-day, my pet," said Trotty. "You and
Richard had some words to-day."

"Because he's such a bad fellow, father," said Meg.
"An't you, Richard? Such a headstrong, violent man!
He'd have made no more of speaking his mind to
that great Alderman, and putting him down I don't
know where, than he would of — '^

" — Kissing Meg," suggested Richard. Doing it
too!

"No. Not a bit more," said Meg. "But I wouldn't
let him, father. Where would have been the use!"

"Richard my boy!" cried Trotty. "You was turned
up Trumps originally; and Trumps you must be, till
you die! But, you were crying by the fire to-night,
my pet, when I came home! Why did you cry by the
fire?"

"I was thinking of the years we've passed together,
father. Only that. And thinking you might miss me,
and be lonely."

Trotty was backing off to that extraordinary chair
again, when the child, who had been awakened by the
noise, came running in half-dressed.

"Why, here she is!" cried Trotty, catching her up.
"Here's little Lilian! Ha ha ha! Here we are and
here we go! O here we are and here we go again!
And here we are and here we go! And Uncle Will

222 THE CHIMES.

too!" Stopping in his trot to greet him heartily. "O,
Uncle Will, the vision that I've had to-night, through
lodging you! O, Uncle Will, the obligations that
you've laid me under, by your coming, my good
friend!"

Before Will Fern could make the least reply, a band
of music burst into the room, attended by a flock of
neighbours, screaming "A Happy New Year, Meg!"
"A Happy Wedding!" "Many of 'em!" and other
fragmentary good wishes of that sort. The Drum (who
was a private friend of Trotty's) then stepped forward,
and said:

"Trotty Veck, my boy! It's got about, that your
daughter is going to be married to-morrow. There
an't a soul that knows you that don't wish you well,
or that knows her and don't wish her well. Or that
knows you both, and don't wish you both all the hap-
piness the New Year can bring. And here we are, to
play it in and dance it in, accordingly."

Which was received with a general shout. The
Drum was rather drunk, by-the-bye; but, never mind.

"What a happiness it is, I'm sure," said Trotty,
"to be so esteemed! How kind and neighbourly you
are! It's all along of my dear daughter. She de-
serves it!"

They were ready for a dance in half a second
(Meg and Richard at the top); and the Drum was on
the very brink of leathering away with all his power;
when a combination of prodigious sounds was heard
outside, and a good-humoured comely woman of some
fifty years of age, or thereabouts, came running in,
attended by a man bearing a stone pitcher of terrific
size, and closely followed by the marrow-bones and

THE CHIMES. 22,3

cleavers, and tlie bells; not the Bells, but a portable
collection, on a frame.

Trotty said "It's Mrs. Chickenstalker!" And sat
down and beat his knees again.

"Married, and not tell me, Meg!" cried the good
woman. "Never! I couldn't rest on the last night
of the Old Year without coming to wish you joy. I
couldn't have done it, Meg. Not if I had been bed-
ridden. So here I am; and as it's New Year's Eve,
and the Eve of your wedding too, my dear, I had a
little flip made, and brought it with me."

Mrs. Chickenstalker's notion of a little flip, did
honour to her character. The pitcher steamed and
smoked and reeked like a volcano; and the man who
had carried it, was faint.

"Mrs. Tugby!" said Trotty, who had been going
round and round her, in an ecstacy. — "I should say,
Chickenstalker — Bless your heart and soul! A happy
New Year, and many of 'em! Mrs. Tugby," said
Trotty when he had saluted her; — "I should say,
Chickenstalker — This is William Fern and Lilian."

The worthy dame, to his surprise, turned very pale
and very red.

"Not Lilian Fern whose mother died in Dorset-
shire!" said she.

Her uncle answered "Yes," and meeting hastily,
they exchanged some hurried words together; of which
the upshot was, that Mrs. Chickenstalker shook him
by both hands; saluted Trotty on his cheek again of
her own free will; and took the child to her capacious
breast.

"Will Fern!" said Trotty, pulling on his right-

224 THE CHIMES.

hand muffler. "Not the friend that you was hoping
to find?"

"Ay!" returned Will, putting a hand on each of
Trott/s shoulders. "And like to prove a'most as
good a friend, if that can be, as one I found."

"O!" said Trotty. "Please to play up there.
Will you have the goodness!"

To the music of the band, the bells, the marrow-
bones and cleavers, all at once; and while The Chimes
were yet in lusty operation out of doors; Trotty,
making Meg and Richard second couple, led off Mrs.
Chickenstalker down the dance, and danced it in a
step unknown before or since; founded on his own
peculiar trot.

Had Trotty dreamed? Or, are his joys and sor-
rows, and the actors in them, but a dream: himself a
dream; the teller of this tale a dreamer, waking but
now? If it be so, O listener, dear to him in all his
visions, try to bear in mind the stern realities from
which these shadows come; and in your sphere — none
is too wide, and none too limited for such an end —
endeavour to correct, improve, and soften them. So
may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to
many more whose happiness depends on you! So
may each year be happier than the last, and not the
meanest of our brethren or sisterhood debarred their
rightful share, in what our Great Creator formed them
to enjoy.

END OF "the chimes."

THE

CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

A
FAIRY TALE OF HOME.

A Christmas Carol, etc. *5

TO

LORD JEFFREY

THIS LITTLE STOKY IS INSCRIBED,

WITH

THE AFFECTION AND ATTACHMENT OF HIS FRIEND,

THE AUTHOR.

December, 1845.

15'

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

CHIRP THE FIRST.

The kettle began it! Don't tell me what Mrs.
Peerybingle said. I know better. Mrs. Peerybingle
may leave it on record to the end of time that she
couldn't say which of them began it; but, I say the
kettle did. I ought to know, I hope? The kettle
began it, full five minutes by the little waxy-faced
Dutch clock in the corner, before the Cricket uttered
a chirp.

As if the clock hadn't finished striking, and the
convulsive little Haymaker at the top of it, jerking
away right and left with a scythe in front of a Moorish
Palace, hadn't mowed down half an acre of imaginary
grass before the Cricket joined in at all!

Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one
knows that. I wouldn't set my own opinion against
the opinion of Mrs. Peerybingle, unless I were quite
sure, on any account whatever. Nothing should in-
duce me. But, this is a question of fact. And the
fact is, that the kettle began it, at least five minutes
before the Cricket gave any sign of being in existence.
Contradict me, and I'll say ten.

Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should
have proceeded to do so, in my very first word, but

230 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

for this plain consideration — if I am to tell a story I
must begin at the beginning; and how is it possible
to begin at the beginning, without beginning at the
kettle?

It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or
trial of skill, you must understand, between the kettle"
and the Cricket. And this is what led to it, and how
it came about.

Mrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight,
and clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens
that worked innumerable rough impressions of the
first proposition in Euclid all about the yard — Mrs.
Peerybingle filled the kettle at the water butt. Pre-
sently returning, less the pattens (and a good deal
less, for they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was but
short) she set the kettle on the fire. In doing which
she lost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant; for,
the water being uncomfortably cold, and in that
slippy, slushy, sleety sort of state wherein it seems to
penetrate through every kind of substance, patten
rings included — had laid hold of Mrs. Peerybingle's
toes, and even splashed her legs. And when we
rather plume ourselves (with reason too) upon our
legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in point of
stockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear.

Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate.
It wouldn't allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar;
it wouldn't hear of accommodating itself kindly to
the knobs of coal; it would lean forward with a
drunken air, and dribble, a very Idiot of a kettle, on
the hearth. It was quarrelsome, and hissed and splut-
tered morosely at the fire. To sum up all, the lid,
resisting Mrs. Peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 23 1

topsy-turvy, and then, with an ingenious pertinacity
deserving of a better cause, dived sideways in — down
to the very bottom of the kettle. And the hull of the
Royal George has never made half the monstrous re-
sistance to coming out of the water, which the lid of
that kettle employed against Mrs. Peerybingle, before
she got it up again.

It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even
then; carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and
cocking its spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peery-
bingle, as if it said, "I won't boil. Nothing shall in-
duce me!"

But, Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good humour,
dusted her chubby little hands against each other, and
sat down before the kettle, laughing. Meantime, the
jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and gleaming on
the little Haymaker at the top of the Dutch clock,
until one might have thought he stood stock still be-
fore the Moorish Palace, and nothing was in motion
but the flame.

He was on the move, however; and had his spasms,
two to the second, all right and regular. But, his
sufferings when the clock was going to strike, were
frightful to behold; and, when a Cuckoo looked out
of a trap-door in the Palace, and gave note six times,
it shook him, each time, like a spectral voice — or like
a something wiry, plucking at his legs.

It was not until a violent commotion and a whir-
ring noise among the weights and ropes below him
had quite subsided, that this terrified Haymaker be-
came himself again. Nor was he startled without
reason; for, these rattling, bony skeletons of clocks
are very disconcerting in their operation, and I wonder

2^2 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

very much how any set of men, but most of all how
Dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them.
There is a popular belief that Dutchmen love broad
cases and much clothing for their own lower selves;
and they might know better than to leave their clocks
so very lank and unprotected, surely.

Now it was, you observe, that the kettle began to
spend the evening. Now it was, that the kettle, grow-
ing mellow and musical, began to have irrepressible
gurglings in its throat, and to indulge in short vocal
snorts, which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn't
quite made up its mind yet, to be good company.
Now it was, that after two or three such vain attempts
to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off all
moroseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of
song so cosy and hilarious, as never maudlin nightingale
yet formed the least idea of

So plain too! Bless you, you might have under-
stood it like a book — better than some books you
and I could name, perhaps. With its warm breath
gushing forth in a light cloud which merrily and grace-
fully ascended a few feet, then hung about the
chimney-corner as its own domestic Heaven, it trolled
its song with that strong energy of cheerfulness, that
its iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire; and
the lid itself, the recently rebellious lid — such is the
influence of a bright example — performed a sort of
jig, and clattered like a deaf and dumb young cymbal
that had never known the use of its twin brother.

That this song of the kettle's was a song of invita-
tion and welcome to somebody out of doors: to some-
body at that moment coming on, towards the snug
small home and the crisp fire : there is no doubt what-

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 2^^

ever. Mrs. Peerybingle knew it, perfectly, as she sat
musing before the hearth. It's a dark night, sang the
kettle, and the rotten leaves are lying by the way;
and, above, all is mist and darkness, and, below, aJl
is mire and clay; and there's only one relief in all the
sad and murky air; and I don't know that it is one,
for it's nothing but a glare; of deep and angry crim-
son, where the sun and wind together; set a brand
upon the clouds for being guilty of such weather; and
the widest open country is a long dull streak of
black; and there's hoar-frost on the finger-post, and
thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn't water, and
the water isn't free; and you couldn't say that any-
thing is what it ought to be; but he's coming, coming,
coming!

And here, if you like, the Cricket Dm chime in!
with a Chirrup, Chirrup, Chirrup of such magnitude,
by way of chorus; with a voice, so astoundingly dis-
proportionate to its size, as compared with the kettle;
(size! you couldn't see it!) that if it had then and
there burst itself like an over-charged gun, if it had
fallen a victim on the spot, and chirruped its little
body into fifty pieces, it would have seemed a natural
and inevitable consequence, for which it had expressly
laboured.

The kettle had had the last of its solo performance.
It persevered with undiminished ardour; but the
Cricket took first fiddle and kept it. Good Heaven,
how it chirped! Its shrill, sharp, piercing voice re-
sounded through the house, and seemed to twinkle
in the outer darkness like a star. There was an in-
describable little trill and tremble in it at its loudest,
which suggested its being carried off its legs, and

2 34 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

made to leap again, by its own intense enthusiasm.
Yet they went very well together, the Cricket and the
kettle. The burden of the song was still the same;
and louder, louder, louder still, they sang it in their
emulation.

The fair little listener — for fair she was, and young:
though something of what is called the dumpling
shape; but I don't myself object to that — lighted a
candle, glanced at the Haymaker on the top of the
clock, who was getting in a pretty average crop of
minutes; and looked out of the window, where she
saw nothing, owing to the darkness, but her own face
imaged in the glass. And my opinion is (and so
would yours have been), that she might have looked
a long way and seen nothing half so agreeable. When
she came back, and sat down in her former seat, the
Cricket and the kettle were still keeping it up, with
a perfect fury of competition. The kettle's weak side
clearly being, that he didn't know when he was beat.

There was all the excitement of a race about it.
Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum,
hum, hum — m — m! Kettle making play in the dis-
tance, like a great top. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket
round the corner. Hum, hum, hum — m — m! Kettle
sticking to him in his own way; no idea of giving in.
Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket fresher than ever. Hum,
hum, hum — m — m! Kettle slow and steady. Chirp,
chirp, chirp! Cricket going in to finish him. Hum,
hum, hum — m — m! Kettle not to be finished. Until
at last, they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-
skurry, helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the
kettle chirped and the Cricket hummed, or the Cricket
chirped and the kettle hummed, or they both chirped

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 235

and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer head
than yours or mine to have decided with anything
like certainty. But, of this, there is no doubt: that,
the kettle and the Cricket, at one and the same
moment, and by some power of amalgamation best
known to themselves, sent, each, his fireside song of
comfort streaming into a ray of the candle that shone
out through the window, and a long way down the
lane. And this light, bursting on a certain person
who, on the instant, approached towards it through
the gloom, expressed the whole thing to him, literally
in a twinkling, and cried, "Welcome home, old fellow!
Welcome home, my boy!"

This end attained, the kettle, being dead beat,
boiled over, and was taken off the fire. Mrs. Peery-
bingle then went running to the door, where, what
with the wheels of a cart, the tramp of a horse, the
voice of a man, the tearing in and out of an excited
dog, and the surprising and mysterious appearance
of a baby, there was soon the very What's-his-name
to pay.

Where the baby came from, or how Mrs. Peery-
bingle got hold of it in that flash of time, / don't
know. But a live baby there was, in Mrs. Peerybingle's
arms; and a pretty tolerable amount of pride she
seemed to have in it, when she was drawn gently to
the fire, by a sturdy figure of a man, much taller and
much older than herself, who had to stoop a long
way down, to kiss her. But, she was worth the
trouble. Six foot six, with the lumbago, might have
done it.

"Oh goodness, John!" said Mrs. P. "What a state
you're in with the weather!"

236 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

He was something the worse for it undeniably.
The thick mist hung in clots upon his eyelashes like
candied thaw; and, between the fog and fire together,
there were rainbows in his very whiskers.

"Wliy, you see. Dot," John made answer, slowly,
as he unrolled a shawl from about his throat; and
warmed his hands; "it — it an't exactly summer weather.
So, no wonder."

"I wish you wouldn't call me Dot, John. I don't
like it," said Mrs. Peerybingle: pouting in a way that
clearly showed she did like it, very much.

"Why what else are you?" returned John, looking
down upon her with a smile, and giving her waist as
light a squeeze as his huge hand and arm could give.
"A dot and" — here he glanced at the baby — "a dot
and carry — I won't say it, for fear I should spoil it;
but I was very near a joke. I don't know as ever I
was nearer."

He was often near to something or other very
clever, by his own account: this lumbering, slow,
honest John; this John so heavy, but so light of spirit;
so rough upon the surface, but so gentle at the core;
so dull without, so quick within; so stolid, but so
good! Oh Mother Nature, give thy children the true
poetry of heart that hid itself in this poor Carrier's
breast — he was but a Carrier by the way — and we can
bear to have them talking prose, and leading lives of
prose; and bear to bless thee for their company!

It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure and
her baby in her arms: a veiy doll of a baby: glancing
with a coquettish thoughtfulness at the fire, and in-
clining her delicate little head just enough on one
side to let it rest in an odd, half-natural, half-affected,

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 237

wholly nestling and agreeable manner, on the great
rugged figure of the Carrier. It was pleasant to see
him, with his tender awkwardness, endeavouring to
adapt his rude support to her slight need, and make
his burly middle-age a leaning-staff not inappropriate
to her blooming youth. It was pleasant to observe
how Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the background for the
baby, took special cognizance (though in her earliest
teens) of this grouping; and stood with her mouth
and eyes wide open, and her head thrust forward,
taking it in as if it were air. Nor was it less agree-
able to observe how John the Carrier, reference being
made by Dot to the aforesaid baby, checked his hand
when on the point of touching the infant, as if he
thought he might crack it; and bending down, sur-
veyed it from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled
pride, such as an amiable mastiff might be supposed to
show, if he found himself, one day, the father of a
young canary.

"An't he beautiful, John? Don't he look precious
in his sleep?"

"Very precious," said John. "Very much so. He
generally ?s asleep, an't he?"

"Lor, John! Good gracious no!"

"Oh," said John, pondering. "I thought his eyes
was generally shut. Halloa!"

"Goodness John, how you startle one!"

"It an't right for him to turn 'em up in that way!"
said the astonished Carrier, "is it? See how he's wink-
ing with both of 'em at once! and look at his mouth!
Why he's gasping like a gold and silver fish!"

"You don't deserve to be a father, you don't," said
Dot, with all the dignity of an experienced matron.

238 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

"But how should you know what little complaints
children are troubled with, John! You wouldn't so
much as know their names, you stupid fellow." And
when she had turned the baby over on her left arm,
and had slapped its back as a restorative, she pinched
her husband's ear, laughing.

"No," said John, pulling off his outer coat. "It's
very true, Dot. I don't know much about it. I only
know that I've been fighting pretty stiffly with the
wind to-night. It's been blowing north-east, straight
into the cart, the whole way home."

"Poor old man, so it has!" cried Mrs. Peerybingle,
instantly becoming very active. "Here! take the
precious darling, Tilly, while I make myself of some
use. Bless it, I could smother it with kissing it, I
could! Hie then, good dog! Hie Boxer, boy! Only let
me make the tea first, John; and then I'll help you
with the parcels, like a busy bee. 'How doth the
little' — and all the rest of it, you know, John. Did
you ever learn 'how doth the little,' when you went to
school, John?"

"Not to quite know it," John returned. "I was
very near it once. But I should only have spoilt it,
I dare say."

"Ha ha," laughed Dot. She had the blithest little
laugh you ever heard. "What a dear old darling of
a dunce you are, John, to be sure!"

Not at all disputing this position, John went out to
see that the boy with the lantern, which had been
dancing to and fro before the door and window, like
a Will of the Wisp, took due care of the horse; who
was fatter than you would quite believe, if I gave you
his measure, and so old that his birthday was lost in

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 239

the mists of antiquity. Boxer, feeling that his atten-
tions were due to the family in general, and must be
impartially distributed, dashed in and out with bewil-
dering inconstancy; now, describing a circle of short
barks round the horse, where he was being rubbed
down at the stable-door; now, feigning to make savage
rushes at his mistress, and facetiously bringing himself
to sudden stops; now, eliciting a shriek from Tilly
Slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the fire, by the
unexpected application of his moist nose to her coun-
tenance; now, exhibiting an obstrusive interest in the
baby; now, going round and round upon the hearth,
and lying down as if he had established himself for the
night; now, getting up again, and taking that nothing
of a fag-end of a tail of liis, out into the weather, as if
he had just remembered an appointment, and was off,
at a round trot, to keep it.

"There! There's the tea-pot, ready on the hob!"
said Dot; as briskly busy as a child at play at keeping
house. "And there's the cold knuckle of ham; and
there's the butter; and there's the crusty loaf, and all!
Here's a clothes-basket for the small parcels, John,
if you've got any there — where are you, John? Don't
let the dear child fall under the grate, Tilly, whatever
you do!"

It may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her
rejecting the caution with some vivacity, that she had
a rare and surprising talent for getting this baby into
difficulties: and had several times imperilled its short
life, in a quiet way peculiarly her own. She was of a
spare and straight shape, this young lady, insomuch
that her garments appeared to be in constant danger
of sliding off those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which

240 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

they were loosely hung. Her costume was remarkable
for the partial development, on all possible occasions,
of some flannel vestment of a singular structure; also
for affording glimpses, in the region of the back, of a
corset, or pair of stays, in colour a dead-green. Being
always in a state of gaping admiration at everything,
and absorbed, besides, in the perpetual contemplation
of her mistress's perfections and the bab5r's, Miss Slow-
boy, in her little errors of judgment, may be said to
have done equal honour to her head and to her heart;
and though these did less honour to the baby's head,
which they were the occasional means of bringing into
contact with deal doors, dressers, stair-rails, bedposts,
and other foreign substances, still they were the honest
results of Tilly Slowboy's constant astonishment at
finding herself so kindly treated, and installed in such
a comfortable home. For, the maternal and paternal
Slowboy were alike unknown to Fame, and Tilly had
been bred by public charity, a foundling; which word,
though only differing from fondling by one vowel's
length, is very different in meaning, and expresses quite
another thing.

To have seen little Mrs. Peerybingle come back with
her husband, tugging at the clothes-basket, and making
the most strenuous exertions to do nothing at all (for
he carried it); would have amused you, almost as
much as it amused him. It may have entertained the
Cricket too, for anything I know; but, certainly, it
now began to chirp again, vehemently.

"Heyday!" said John, in his slow way, "It's
merrier than ever to-night, I think."

"And it's sure to bring us good fortune, John! It

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 24 1

always has done so. To have a Cricket on the Hearth,
is the luckiest thing in all the world!"

John looked at her as if he had very nearly got
the thought into his head, that she was his Cricket
in chief, and he quite agreed with her. But, it was
probably one of his narrow escapes, for he said
nothing.

"The first time I heard its cheerful little note,
John, was on that night when you brought me home
— when you brought me to my new home here; its
little mistress. Nearly a year ago. You recollect,
John?"

O yes. John remembered. I should think so!

"Its chirp was such a welcome to me! It seemed
so full of promise and encouragement. It seemed to
say, you would be kind and gentle with me, and
would not expect (I had a fear of that, John, then)
to find an old head on the shoulders of your foolish
Httle wife."

John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and
then the head, as though he would have said No, no;
he had had no such expectation; he had been quite
content to take them as they were. And really he
had reason. They were very comely.

"I spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say
so: for you have ever been, I am sure, the best, the
most considerate, the most affectionate of husbands to
me. This has been a happy home, John; and I love
the Cricket for its sake!"

"Why so do I then," said the Carrier. "So do I,
Dot."

"I love it for the many times I have heard it, and
the many thoughts its harmless music has given me.

A Christinas Carol, etc. ID

242 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

Sometimes, in the twilight, when I have felt a little
solitary and down-hearted, John — before baby was
here, to keep me company and make the house gay —
when I have thought how lonely you would be if I
should die; how lonely I should be, if I could know
that you had lost me, dear; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp
upon the hearth, has seemed to tell me of another
little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me, before whose
coming sound, my trouble vanished like a dream.
And when I used to fear — I did fear once, John, I was
very young you know — that ours might prove to be
an ill-assorted marriage, I being such a child, and you
more like my guardian than my husband; and that
you might not, however hard you tried, be able to
learn to love me, as you hoped and prayed you might;
its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp, has cheered me up again, and
filled me with new trust and confidence. I was think-
ing of these things to-night, dear, when I sat expecting
you; and I love the Cricket for their sake!"

"And so do I," repeated John. "But Dot? / hope
and pray that I might learn to love you? How you
talk! I had learnt that, long before I brought you
here, to be the Cricket's little mistress. Dot!"

She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and
looked up at him with an agitated face, as if she
would have told him something. Next moment, she
was down upon her kness before the basket; speaking
in a sprightly voice, and busy with the parcels.

"There are not many of them to-night, John, but
I saw some goods behind the cart, just now; and
though they give more trouble, perhaps, still they pay
as well; so we have no reason to grumble, have we?

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 243

Besides, you have been delivering, I dare say, as you
came along?"

"Oh yes," John said. "A good many."

"Why what's this round box? Heart alive, John,
it's a wedding-cake!"

"Leave a woman alone to find out that," said John
admiringly. "Now a man would never have thought
of it! Whereas, it's my belief that if you was to pack
a wedding-cake up in a tea-chest, or a turn-up bedstead,
or a pickled salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a
woman would be sure to find it out directly. Yes;
I called for it at the pastry-cook's."

"And it weighs I don't know what — whole hundred-
weights!" cried Dot, making a great demonstration
of trying to lift it. "Whose is it, John? Where is it
going?"

"Read the writing on the other side," said John.

"Why, John! My Goodness, John!"

"Ah! who'd have thought it!" John returned.

"You never mean to say," pursued Dot, sitting on
the floor and shaking her head at him, "that it's
Gruff and Tackleton the toymaker!"

John nodded.

Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least.
Not in assent — in dumb and pitying amazement;
screwing up her lips, the while, with all their little
force (they were never made for screwing up; I am
clear of that), and looking the good Carrier through
and through, in her abstraction. Miss Slowboy, in the
mean time, who had a mechanical power of repro-
ducing scraps of current conversation for the delecta-
tion of the baby, with all the sense struck out of
them, and all the nouns changed into the plural num-

i6*

244 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

ber, enquired aloud of that young creature, Was it
Gruffs and Tackletons the toymakers then, and Would
it call at Pastry-cooks for wedding-cakes, and Did its
mothers know the boxes when its fathers brought them
homes; and so on.

"And that is really to come about!" said Dot.
"Why, she and I were girls at school together, John."

He might have been thinking of her, or nearly
thinking of her, perhaps, as she was in that same school
time. He looked upon her with a thoughtful pleasure,
but he made no answer.

"And he's as old! As unlike her! — Why, how
many years older than you, is Grufi' and Tackleton,
John?"

"How many more cups of tea shall I drink to night
at one sitting, than Gruff and Tackleton ever took in
four, I wonder!" replied John, good-humouredly, as
he drew a chair to the round table, and began at the
cold ham. "As to eating, I eat but little; but, that
little I enjoy. Dot."

Even this, his usual sentiment at meal times, one
of his innocent delusions (for his appetite was always
obstinate, and flatly contradicted him); awoke no
smile in the face of his little wife, who stood among
the parcels, pushing the cake-box slowly from her with
her foot, and never once looked, though her eyes
were cast down too, upon the dainty shoe she generally
was so mindful of Absorbed in thought, she stood
there, heedless alike of the tea and John (although he
called to her, and rapped the table with his knife to
startle her), until he rose and touched her on the arm;
when she looked at him for a moment, and hurried
to her place behind the teaboard, laughing at her

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 245

negligence. But, not as she had laughed before. The
manner, and the music were quite changed.

The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room
was not so cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it.

"So, these are all the parcels, are they, John?" she
said, breaking a long silence, which the honest Carrier
had devoted to the practical illustration of one part of
his favourite sentiment — certainly enjoying what he ate,
if it couldn't be admitted that he ate but little. "So
these are all the parcels; are they, John?"

"That's all," said John. "Why— no— I—" laying
down his knife and fork, and taking a long breath.
"I declare — I've clean forgotten the old gentleman!"

"The old gentleman?"

"In the cart," said John. "He was asleep, among
the straw, the last time I saw him. I've very nearly
remembered him, twice, since I came in; but, he went
out of my head again. Halloa! Yahip there! Rouse
up! That's my hearty!"

John said these latter words outside the door,
whither he had hurried with the candle in his hand.

Miss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious refer-
ence to The Old Gentleman, and connecting in her
mystified imagination certain associations of a religious
nature with the phrase, was so disturbed, that hastily
rising from the low chair by the fire to seek protection
near the skirts of her mistress, and coming into con-
tact as she crossed the doorway with an ancient Stranger,
she instinctively made a charge or butt at him with
the only offensive instrument within her reach. This
instrument happening to be the baby, great commotion
and alarm ensued, which the sagacity of Boxer rather
tended to increase; for, that good dog, more thought-

246 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

fill than his master, had, it seemed, been watching the
old gentleman in his sleep, lest he should walk off
with a few young poplar trees that were tied up behind
the cart; and he still attended on him very closely,
worrying his gaiters in fact, and making dead sets at
the buttons.

"You're such an undeniable good sleeper, sir," said
John when tranquillity was restored; in the mean time
the old gentleman had stood, bareheaded and motion-
less, in the centre of the room; "that I have half a
mind to ask you where the other six are — only that
would be a joke, and I know I should spoil it. Very
near though," murmured the Carrier, with a chuckle;
"very near!"

The Stranger, who had long white hair, good fea-
tures, singularly bold and well defined for an old man,
and dark, bright, penetrating eyes, looked round with
a smile, and saluted the Carrier's wife by gravely in-
clining his head.

His garb was very quaint and odd — a long, long
way behind the time. Its hue was brown, all over.
In his hand he held a great brown club or walking-
stick; and striking this upon the floor, it fell asunder,
and became a chair. On which he sat down, quite
composedly.

"There!" said the Carrier, turning to his wife.
"That's the way I found him, sitting by the roadside!
Upright as a milestone. And almost as deaf."

" Sitting in the open air, John ! "

"In the open air," replied the Carrier, "just at dusk.
'Carriage Paid,' he said; and gave me eighteen-pence.
Then he got in. And there he is."

"He's going, John, I think!"

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 247

Not at all. He was only going to speak.

"If you please, I was to be left till called for," said
the Stranger, mildly. "Don't mind me."

With that, he took a pair of spectacles from one
of his large pockets, and a book from another, and
leisurely began to read. Making no more of Boxer
than if he had been a house lamb!

The Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of per-
plexity. The Stranger raised his head; and glancing
from the latter to the former, said,

"Your daughter, my good friend?"

"Wife," returned John.

"Niece?" said the Stranger.

"Wife," roared John.

"Indeed?" observed the Stranger. "Surely? Very
young!"

He quietly turned over, and resumed his reading.
But, before he could have read two lines, he again
interrupted himself, to say:

"Baby, yours?"

John gave him a gigantic nod: equivalent to an
answer in the affirmative, delivered through a speak-
ing-trumpet.

"Girl?"

"Bo-o-oy!" roared John.

"Also very young, eh?"

Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. "Two months
and three da-ays! Vaccinated just six weeks ago-ol
Took very fine-ly! Considered, by the doctor, a re-
markably beautiful chi-ild! Equal to the general run
of children at five months o-ld! Takes notice, in a
way quite won-der-ful! May seem impossible to you,
but feels his legs al-ready!"

248 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

Here, the breathless Httle mother, who had been
shrieking these short sentences into the old man's ear,
until her pretty face was crimsoned, held up the Baby
before him as a stubborn and triumphant fact; while
Tilly Slowboy, with a melodious cry of "Ketcher,
Ketcher" — which sounded like some unknown words,
adapted to a popular Sneeze — performed some cow-
like gambols round that all unconscious Innocent.

"Hark! He's called for, sure enough," said John.
"There's somebody at the door. Open it, Tilly."

Before she could reach it, however, it was opened
from without; being a primitive sort of door, with a
latch, that any one could lift if he chose — and a good
many people did choose, for all kinds of neighbours
liked to have a cheerful word or two with the Carrier,
though he was no great talker himself. Being opened,
it gave admission to a little, meagre, thoughtful, dingy-
faced man, who seemed to have made himself a great-
coat from the sack-cloth covering of some old box;
for, when he turned to shut the door, and keep the
weather out, he disclosed upon the back of that gar-
ment, the inscription G & T in large black capitals.
Also the word GLASS in bold characters.

"Good evening John!" said the Httle man. "Good
evening Mum. Good evening Tilly. Good evening
Unbeknown! How's Baby Mum? Boxer's pretty well
I hope?"

"All thriving, Caleb," replied Dot. "I am sure
you need only look at the dear child, for one, to know
that."

"And I'm sure I need only look at you for another,"
said Caleb.

He didn't look at her though; he had a wandering

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 249

and thoughtful eye which seemed to be always pro-
jecting itself into some other time and place, no matter
what he said; a description which will equally apply
to his voice.

"Or at John for another," said Caleb. "Or at Tilly,
as far as that goes. Or certainly at Boxer."

"Busy just now, Caleb?" asked the Carrier.

"Why, pretty well, John," he returned, with the
distraught air of a man who was casting about for the
Philosopher's stone, at least. "Pretty much so. There's
rather a run on Noah's Arks at present. I could have
wished to improve upon the Family, but I don't see
how it's to be done at the price. It would be a satis-
faction to one's mind, to make it clearer which was
Shems and Hams, and which was Wives. Flies an't
on that scale neither, as compared with elephants you
know! Ah! well! Have you got anything in the parcel
line for me, John?"

The Carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat
he had taken off; and brought out, carefully preserved
in moss and paper, a tiny flower-pot.

"There it is!" he said, adjusting it with great care.
"Not so much as a leaf damaged. Full of buds!"

Caleb's dull eye brightened, as he took it, and
thanked him.

"Dear, Caleb," said the Carrier. "Very dear at
this season."

"Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, what-
ever it cost," returned the little man. "Anything else,
John?"

"A small box," replied the Carrier. "Here you
are! "

"'For Caleb Plummer,'" said the little man, spell-

250 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

ing out the direction. " 'With Cash.' With Cash, John?
I don't think it's for me."

"With Care," returned the Carrier, looking over
his shoulder. "Where do you make out cash?"

"Oh! To be sure!" said Caleb. "It's all right.
With care! Yes, yes; that's mine. It might have been
with cash, indeed, if my dear Boy in the Golden South
Americas had lived, John. You loved him like a son;
didn't you? You needn't say you did. / know, of
course. 'Caleb Plummer. With care.' Yes, yes, it's
all right. It's a box of dolls' eyes for my daughter's
work. I wish it was her own sight in a box, John."

"I wish it was, or could be!" cried the Carrier.

"Thankee," said the little man, "You speak very
hearty. To think that she should never see the Dolls
— and them a staring at her, so bold, all day long!
That's where it cuts. What's the damage, John?"

"I'll damage you," said John, "if you inquire. Dot!
Very near?"

"Well! it's like you to say so," observed the little
man. "It's your kind way. Let me see. I think
that's all."

"I think not," said the Carrier. "Try again."

"Something for our Governor, eh?" said Caleb,
after pondering a little while. "To be sure. That's
what I came for; but my head's so running on them
Arks and things! He hasn't been here, has he?"

"Not he," returned the Carrier. "He's too busy,
courting."

"He's coming round though," said Caleb; "for he
told me to keep on the near side of the road going
home, and it was ten to one he'd take me up. I had
better go, by the bye — You couldn't have the good-

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 25 I

ness to let me pinch Boxer's tail, Mum, for half a
moment, could you?"

"Why, Caleb! what a question!"

"Oh never mind. Mum," said the little man. "He
mightn't like it perhaps. There's a small order just
come in, for barking dogs; and I should wish to go
as close to Natur' as I could for sixpence. That's all.
Never mind, Mum."

It happened opportunely, that Boxer, without re-
ceiving the proposed stimulus, began to bark with
great zeal. But, as this implied the approach of some
new visitor, Caleb, postponing his study from the life
to a more convenient season, shouldered the round
box, and took a hurried leave. He might have spared
himself the trouble, for he met the visitor upon the
threshold.

"Oh! You are here, are you? Wait a bit. I'll
take you home. John Peerybingle, my service to you.
More of my service to your pretty wife. Handsomer
every day! Better too, if possible! And younger,"
mused the speaker in a low voice, "that's the devil
of it!"

"I should be astonished at your paying compli-
ments, Mr. Tackleton," said Dot, not with the best
grace in the world; "but for your condition."

"You know all about it then?"

"I have got myself to believe it somehow," said
Dot.

"After a hard struggle, I suppose?"

"Very."

Tackleton the Toy merchant, pretty generally known
as Gruff and Tackleton— for that was the firm, though
Gruff had been bought out long ago; only leaving his

252 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

name, and as some said his nature, according to its
Dictionary meaning, in the business — Tackleton the
Toy merchant, was a man whose vocation had been
quite misunderstood by his Parents and Guardians.
If they had made him a Money Lender, or a sharp
Attorney, or a Sheriff's Officer, or a Broker, he might
have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and,
after having had the full-run of himself in ill-natured
transactions, might have turned out amiable, at last,
for the sake of a little freshness and novelty. But,
cramped and chafing in the peaceable pursuit of toy-
making, he was a domestic Ogre, who had been living
on children all his life, and was their implacable enemy.
He despised all toys; wouldn't have bought one for
the world; delighted, in his malice, to insinuate grim
expressions into the faces of brown paper farmers who
drove pigs to market, bellmen who advertised lost
lawyers' consciences, moveable old ladies who darned
stockings or carved pies; and other like samples of his
stock in trade. In appalling masks; hideous, hairy,
red-eyed Jacks in Boxes; Vampire Kites; demoniacal
Tumblers who wouldn't lie down, and were perpetually
flying forward, to stare infants out of countenance; his
soul perfectly revelled. They were his only relief, and
safety-valve. He was great in such inventions. Any-
thing suggestive of a Pony nightmare, was delicious
to him. He had even lost money (and he took to that
toy very kindly) by getting up Goblin slides for magic
lanterns, whereon the Powers of Darkness were de-
picted as a sort of supernatural shell-fish, with human
faces. In intensifying the portraiture of Giants, he
had sunk quite a little capital; and, though no painter
himself, he could indicate, for the instruction of his

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 253

artists, with a piece of chalk, a certain furtive leer for
the countenances of those monsters, which was safe to
destroy the peace of mind of any young gentleman
between the ages of six and eleven, for the whole
Christmas or Midsummer Vacation.

What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in
other things. You may easily suppose, therefore, that
within the great green cape, which reached down to
the calves of his legs, there was buttoned up to the
chin an uncommonly pleasant fellow; and that he was
about as choice a spirit, and as agreeable a companion,
as ever stood in a pair of bull -headed looking boots
with mahogany-coloured tops.

Still, Tackleton, the toy -merchant, was going to
be married. In spite of all this, he was going to be
married. And to a young wife too, a beautiful young
wife.

He didn't look much like a Bridegroom, as he
stood in the Carrier's kitchen, with a twist in his
dry face, and a screw in his body, and his hat jerked
over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked
down into the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole
sarcastic ill-conditioned self peering out of one little
corner of one little eye, like the concentrated essence
of any number of ravens. But, a Bridegroom he de-
signed to be.

"In three days' time. Next Thursday. The last day
of the first month in the year. That's my wedding-
day," said Tackleton.

Did I mention that he had always one eye wide
open, and one eye nearly shut; and that the one eye
nearly shut, was always the expressive eye? I don't
think I did.

254 '^"^^E CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

"That's my wedding-day!" said Tackleton, rattling
his money.

"Why, it's our wedding-day too," exclaimed the
Carrier.

"Ha ha!" laughed Tackleton. "Odd! You're just
such another couple. Just!"

The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous asser-
tion is not to be described. What next? His imagi-
nation would compass the possibility of just such
another Baby, perhaps. The man was mad.

"I say! A word with you," murmured Tackleton,
nudging the Carrier with his elbow, and taking him a
little apart, "You'll come to the wedding? We're in
the same boat, you know."

"How in the same boat?" inquired the Carrier.

"A little disparity you know;" said Tackleton, with
another nudge. "Come and spend an evening with us,
beforehand."

"Why," demanded John, astonished at this pressing
hospitality.

"Why?" returned the other. "That's a new way
of receiving an invitation. Why, for pleasure — socia-
bility, you know, and all that?"

"I thought you were never sociable," said John, in
his plain way.

"Tchah! It's of no use to be anything but free
with you I see," said Tackleton. "Why, then, the truth
is you have a — what tea-drinking people call a sort of
a comfortable appearance together, you and your wife.
We know better, you know, but — "

"No, we don't know better," interposed John. "What
are you talking about?"

"Well! We don't know better then," said Tackle-

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 255

ton. "We'll agree that we don't. As you like; what
does it matter? I was going to say, as you have that
sort of appearance, your company will produce a
favourable effect on Mrs. Tackleton that will be.
And, though I don't think your good lady's very
friendly to me, in this matter, still she can't help her-
self from falling into my views, for there's a compact-
ness and cosiness of appearance about her that always
tells, even in an indifferent case. You'll say you'll
come?"

"We have arranged to keep our Wedding-day (as
far as that goes) at home," said John. "We have made
the promise to ourselves these six months. We think,
you see, that home "

"Bah! what's home?" cried Tackleton. "Four
walls and a ceiling! (why don't you kill that Cricket;
/ would! I always do. I hate their noise.) There
are four walls and a ceiling at my house. Come to
me!"

"You kill your Crickets, eh?" said John.

"Scrunch 'em, sir," returned the other, setting his
heel heavily on the floor. "You'll say you'll come?
It's as much your interest as mine, you know, that the
women should persuade each other that they're quiet
and contented, and couldn't be better off. I know
their way. Whatever one woman says, another woman
is determined to clinch, always. There's that spirit of
emulation among 'em, sir, that if your wife says to
my wife, 'I'm the happiest woman in the world, and
mine's the best husband in the world, and I dote on
him,' my wife will say the same to yours, or more, and
half believe it."

256 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

"Do you mean to say she don't, then?" asked the
Carrier.

"Don't!" cried Tackleton, with a short, sharp, laugh.
"Don't what?"

The Carrier had some faint idea of adding, "dote
upon you." But, happening to meet the half-closed
eye, as it twinkled upon him over the turned-up collar
of the cape, which was within an ace of poking it out,
he felt it such an unlikely part and parcel of anything
to be doted on, than he substituted, "that she don't
beheve it?"

"Ah you dog! You're joking," said Tackleton.

But the Carrier, though slow to understand the
full drift of his meaning, eyed him in such a serious
manner, that he was obliged to be a little more ex-
planatory.

"I have the humour," said Tackleton: holding up
the fingers of his left hand, and tapping the fore-
finger, to imply 'there I am, Tackleton to wit:'
"I have the humour, sir, to marry a young wife,
and a pretty wife:" here he rapped his little finger,
to express the Bride; not sparingly, but sharply;
with a sense of power. "I'm able to gratify that
humour and I do. It's my whim. But — now look
there!"

He pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully,
before the fire; leaning her dimpled chin upon her
hand, and watching the bright blaze. The Carrier
looked at her, and then at him, and then at her, and
then at him again.

"She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know,"
said Tackleton; "and that, as I am not a man of

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 257

sentiment, is quite enough for 7ne. But do you think
there's anything more in it?"

"I think," observed the Carrier, "that I should
chuck any man out of window, who said there
wasn't."

"Exactly so," returned the other with an unusual
alacrity of assent. "To be sure! Doubtless you would.
Of course. I'm certain of it. Good night. Pleasant
dreams!"

The Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable
and uncertain, in spite of himself. He couldn't help
showing it, in his manner.

"Good night, my dear friend!" said Tackleton,
compassionately. "I'm off. We're exactly alike, in
reality, I see. You won't give us to-morrow evening?
Well! Next day you go out visiting, I know. I'll
meet you there, and bring my wife that is to be. It'll
do her good. You're agreeable? Thankee. What's
that!"

It was a loud cry from the Carrier's wife: a loud,
sharp, sudden cry, that made the room' ring, like a
glass vessel. She had risen from her seat, and stood
like one transfixed by terror and surprise. The
Stranger had advanced towards the fire to warm him-
self, and stood within a short stride of her chair. But
quite still.

"Dot!" cried the Carrier. "Mary! Darling! What's
the matter?"

They were all about her in a moment. Caleb, who
had been dozing on the cake-box, in the first imper-
fect recovery of his suspended presence of mind,
seized Miss Slowboy by the hair of her head, but im-
mediately apologised.

A Christmas Carol, etc. 17

258 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

"Mary!" exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in
his arms. "Are you ill! What is it? Tell me,
dear!"

She only answered by beating her hands together,
and falling into a wild fit of laughter. Then, sinking
from his grasp upon the ground, she covered her face
with her apron, and wept bitterly. And then, she
laughed again, and then she cried again, and then she
said how cold it was, and suffered him to lead her to
the fire, where she sat down as before. The old man
standing, as before, quite still.

"I'm better, John," she said. "I'm quite well now
—I "

"John!" But John was on the other side of her.
Why turn her face towards the strange old gentleman,
as if addressing him! Was her brain wandering?

"Only a fancy, John dear — a kind of shock — a some-
thing coming suddenly before my eyes — I don't know
what it was. It's quite gone, quite gone."

"I'm glad it's gone," muttered Tackleton, turning
the expressive eye all round the room. "I wonder
where it's gone, and what it was. Humph! Caleb,
come here! Who's that with the grey hair?"

"I don't know, sir," returned Caleb, in a whisper.
"Never see him before, in all my life. A beautiful
figure for a nut-cracker; quite a new model. With a
screw-jaw opening down into his waistcoat, he'd be
lovely."

"Not ugly enough," said Tackleton.

"Or for a firebox, either," observed Caleb, in deep
contemplation, "what a model! Unscrew his head to
put the matches in; turn him heels up'ards for the light;

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 259

and what a firebox for a gentleman's nicintel-shelf, just
as he stands!"

"Not half ugly enough," said Tackleton. "Nothing
in him at all. Come! Bring that box! All right now,
I hope?"

"Oh quite gone! Quite gone!" said the little wo-
man waving him hurriedly away. "Good night!"

"Good night," said Tackleton. "Good night, John
Peerybingle! Take care how you carry that box, Caleb.
Let it fall, and I'll murder you! Dark as pitch, and
weather worse than ever, eh? Good night!"

So, with another sharp look round the room, he
went out at the door; followed by Caleb with the wed-
ding-cake on his head.

The Carrier had been so much astounded by his
little wife, and so busily engaged in soothing and tend-
ing her, that he had scarcely been conscious of the
Stranger's presence, until now, when he again stood
there, their only guest.

"He don't belong to them, you see," said John.
"I must give him a hint to go."

"I beg your pardon, friend," said the old gentle-
man, advancing to him; "the more so, as I fear your
wife has not been well; but the Attendant whom my
infirmity," he touched his ears, and shook his head,
"renders almost indispensable, not having arrived, I
fear there must be some mistake. The bad night which
made the shelter of your comfortable cart (may I never
have a worse!) so acceptable, is still as bad as ever.
Would you, in your kindness, suffer me to rent a bed
here?"

"Yes, yes," cried Dot. "Yes! Certainly!"

"Oh!" said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity

17*^

26o THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

of this consent. "Well! I don't object; but, still I'm
not quite sure that — "

"Hush!" she interrupted. "Dear John!"

"Why, he's stone deaf," urged John.

"I know he is, but — Yes sir, certainly. Yes! cer-
tainly! I'll make him up a bed, directly, John."

As she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits,
and the agitation of her manner, were so strange, that
the Carrier stood looking after her, quite confounded.

"Did its mothers make it up a Beds then!" cried
Miss Slowboy to the Baby; "and did its hair grow
brown and curly, when its caps was lifted off, and
frighten it, a precious Pets, a sitting by the fires!"

With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to
trifles, which is often incidental to a state of doubt and
confusion, the Carrier, as he walked slowly to and fro,
found himself mentally repeating even these absurd
words, many times. So many times, that he got them
by heart, and was still conning them over and over,
like a lesson, when Tilly, after administering as much
friction to the little bald head with her hand as she
thought wholesome (according to the practice of nurses),
had once more tied the Baby's cap on.

"And frighten it a precious Pets, a sitting by the
fires. What frightened Dot, I wonder!" mused the
Carrier, pacing to and fro.

He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the
Toy merchant, and yet they filled him with a vague,
indefinite uneasiness. For, Tackleton was quick and
sly; and he had that painful sense, himself, of being a
man of slow perception, that a broken hint was always
worrying to him. He certainly had no intention in his
mind of linking anything that Tackleton had said, with

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 26 1

the unusual conduct of his wife, but the two subjects
of reflection came into his mind together, and he could
not keep them asunder.

The bed was soon made ready; and the visitor,
declining all refreshment but a cup of tea, retired.
Then, Dot — quite well again, she said, quite well again
— arranged the great chair in the chimney corner for
her husband; filled his pipe and gave it him; and took
her usual little stool beside him on the hearth.

She always would sit on that little stool. I think
she must have had a kind of notion that it was a coax-
ing, wheedling, little stool.

She was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe,
I should say, in the four quarters of the globe. To
see her put that chubby little finger in the bowl, and
then blow down the pipe to clear the tube, and, when
she had done so, affect to think that there was really
something in the tube, and blow a dozen times, and
hold it to her eye like a telescope, with a most pro-
voking twist in her capital little face, as she looked
down it, was quite a brilliant thing. As to the tobacco,
she was perfect mistress of the subject; and her light"
ing of the pipe, with a wisp of paper, when the Carrier
had it in his mouth — going so very near his nose, and
yet not scorching it — was Art, high Art.

And the Cricket and the Kettle, tuning up again,
acknowledged it! The bright fire, blazing up again,
acknowledged it! The little Mower on the clock, in his
unheeded work, acknowledged it! The Carrier, in his
smoothing forehead and expanding face, acknowledged
it, the readiest of all.

And as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his
old pipe, and as the Dutch clock ticked, and as the

262 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

red fire gleamed, and as the Cricket chirped; that Ge-
nius of his Hearth and Home (for such the Cricket
was) came out, in fairy shape, into the room, and sum-
moned many forms of Home about him. Dots of all
ages, and all sizes, filled the chamber. Dots who were
merry children, running on before him gathering flowers,
in the fields; coy Dots, half shrinking from, half yield-
ing to, the pleading of his own rough image; newly
married Dots, alighting at the door, and taking won-
dering possession of the household keys; motherly little
Dots, attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies
to be christened; matronly Dots, still young and bloom-
ing, watching Dots of daughters, as they danced at
rustic balls; fat Dots, encircled and beset by troops of
rosy grand-children; withered Dots, who leaned on
sticks, and tottered as they crept along. Old Carriers
too, appeared, with blind old Boxers lying at their feet;
and newer carts with younger drivers ("Peerybingle
Brothers" on the tilt); and sick old Carriers, tended
by the gentlest hands; and graves of dead and gone
old Carriers, green in the churchyard. And as the
Cricket showed him all these things — he saw them
plainly, though his eyes were fixed upon the fire — the
Carriers heart grew light and happy, and he thanked
his Household Gods with all his might, and cared no
more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do.

But, what was that young figure of a man, which
the same Fairy Cricket set so near Her stool, and
which remained there, singly and alone? Why did it
linger still, so near her, with its arm upon the chimney-
piece, ever repeating "Married! and not to me!"

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 263

O Dot! O failing Dot! There is no place for it in
all your husband's visions; why has its shadow fallen
on his hearth!

CHIRP THE SECOND.

Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all
alone by themselves, as the Story-Books say — and my
blessing, with yours to back it I hope, on the Story-
books, for saying anything in this workaday world! —
Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone
by themselves, in a little cracked nutshell of a wooden
house, which was, in truth, no better than a pimple
on the prominent red-brick nose of Gruff and Tackle-
ton. The premises of Gruff and Tackleton were the
great feature of the street; but you might have knocked
down Caleb Plummer's dwelling with a hammer or
two, and carried off the pieces in a cart.

If any one had done the dwelling-house of Caleb
Plummer the honour to miss it after such an inroad,
it would have been, no doubt, to commend its demo-
lition as a vast improvement. It stuck to the pre-
mises of Gruff and Tackleton, like a barnacle to a
ship's keel, or a snail to a door, or a little bunch of
toadstools to the stem of a tree. But, it was the
germ from which the full-grown trunk of Gruff and
Tackleton had sprung; and under its crazy roof, the
Gruff before last had, in a small way, made toys for
a generation of old boys and girls, who had played
with them, and found them out, and broken them, and
gone to sleep.

I have said that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter

264 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

lived here. I should have said that Caleb lived
here, and his poor Blind Daughter somewhere else —
in an enchanted home of Caleb's furnishing, where
scarcity and shabbiness were not, and trouble never
entered. Caleb was no sorcerer, but in the only
magic art that still remains to us, the magic of de-
voted, deathless love. Nature had been the mistress
of his study; and from her teaching, all the wonder
came.

The Blind Girl never knew that ceilings were dis-
coloured, walls blotched and bare of plaster here and
there, high crevices unstopped and widening every
day, beams mouldering and tending downward. The
Blind Girl never knew that iron was rusting, wood
rotting, paper peeling off; the size, and shape, and
true proportion of the dwelling, withering away. The
Blind Girl never knew that ugly shapes of delf and
earthenware were on the board; that sorrow and faint-
heartedness were in the house; that Caleb's scanty
hairs were turning greyer and more grey, before her
sightless face. The Blind Girl never knew they had a
master, cold, exacting, and uninterested — never knew
that Tackleton was Tackleton in short; but lived in
the belief of an eccentric humourist who loved to have
his jest with them, and who, while he was the Guar-
dian Angel of their lives, disdained to hear one word
of thankfulness.

And all was Caleb's doing; all the doing of her
simple father! But he too had a Cricket on his
Hearth; and listening sadly to its music when the
motherless Blind Child was very young, that Spirit
had inspired him with the thought that even her
great deprivation might be almost changed into a

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 265

blessing, and the girl made happy by these little means.
For all the Cricket tribe are potent Spirits, even though
the people who hold converse with them do not know
it (which is frequently the case) and there are not
in the unseen world, voices more gentle and more
true, that may be so implicitly relied on, or that are
so certain to give none but tenderest counsel, as the
Voices in which the Spirits of the Fireside and the
Hearth address themselves to human kind.

Caleb and his daughter were at work together in
their usual working-room, which served them for their
ordinary living-room as well; and a strange place it
was. There were houses in it, finished and unfinished,
for Dolls of all stations in life. Suburban tenements
for Dolls of moderate means; kitchens and single
apartments for Dolls of the lower classes; capital
town residences for Dolls of high estate. Some of
these establishments were already furnished according
to estimate, with a view to the convenience of Dolls
of limited income; others, could be fitted on the most
expensive scale, at a moment's notice, from whole
shelves of chairs and tables, sofas, bedsteads, and up-
holstery. The nobility and gentry and public in
general, for whose accommodation these tenements
were designed, lay, here and there, in baskets, staring
straight up at the ceiling; but, in denoting their de-
grees in society, and confining them to their respective
stations (which experience shows to be lamentably
difficult in real life), the makers of these Dolls had
far improved on Nature, who is often froward and
perverse; for, they, not resting on such arbitrary
marks as satin, cotton-print, and bits of rag, had
superadded striking personal differences which allowed

266 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

of no mistake. Thus, the Doll-lady of distinction
had wax limbs of perfect symmetry; but, only she
and her compeers. The next grade in the social scale
being made of leather, and the next of coarse linen
stuff. As to the common-people, they had just so
many matches out of tinder-boxes, for their arms
and legs, and there they were — established in their
sphere at once, beyond the possibility of getting out
of it.

There were various other samples of his handicraft
besides Dolls, in Caleb Plummer's room. There were
Noah's Arks, in which the Birds and Beasts were an
uncommonly tight fit, I assure you; though they could
be crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled
and shaken into the smallest compass. By a bold
poetical license, most of these Noah's Arks had
knockers on the doors; inconsistent appendages per-
haps, as suggestive of morning callers and a Postman,
yet a pleasant finish to the outside of the building.
There were scores of melancholy little carts, which,
when the wheels w^ent round, performed most doleful
music. Many small fiddles, drums, and other instru-
ments of torture; no end of cannon, shields, swords,
spears, and guns. There were little tumblers in red
breeches, incessantly swarming up high obstacles of
red-tape, and coming down, head first, on the other
side; and there were innumerable old gentlemen of
respectable, not to say venerable appearance, insanely
flying over horizontal pegs, inserted, for the purpose,
in their own street doors. There were beasts of all
sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed, from the
spotted barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a
mane, to the thoroughbred rocker on his highest

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 267

mettle. As it would have been hard to count the
dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were
ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities on the
turning of a handle, so it would have been no easy
task to mention any human folly, vice, or weakness,
that had not its type, immediate or remote, in Caleb
Plummer's room. And not in an exaggerated form,
for very little handles will move men and women to
as strange performances, as any Toy was ever made
to undertake.

In the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his
daughter sat at work. The Blind Girl busy as a Doll's
dressmaker; Caleb painting and glazing the four-pair
front of a desirable family mansion.

The care imprinted in the lines of Caleb's face,
and his absorbed and dreamy manner, which would
have sat well on some alchemist or abstruse student,
were at first sight an odd contrast to his occupation,
and the trivialities about him. But, trivial things,
invented and pursued for bread, become very serious
matters of fact; and, apart from this consideration,
I am not at all prepared to say, myself, that if Caleb
had been a Lord Chamberlain, or a Member of Par-
liament, or a lawyer, or even a great speculator, he
would have dealt in toys one whit less whimsical, while
I have a very great doubt whether they would have
been as harmless.

"So you were out in the rain last night, father, in
your beautiful new great-coat," said Caleb's daughter.

"In my beautiful new great-coat," answered Caleb,
glancing towards a clothes-line in the room on which
the sackcloth garment previously described, was care-
fully hung up to dry.

268 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

"How glad I am you bought it, father!"

"And of such a tailor, too," said Caleb. "Quite a
fashionable tailor. It's too good for me."

The Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed
with delight. "Too good, father! What can be too
good for you?"

"I'm half-ashamed to wear it though," said Caleb,
watching the effect of what he said, upon her brighten-
ing face "upon my word! When I hear the boys and
people say behind me, 'Hal-loa! Here's a swell!' I
don't know which way to look. And when the beggar
wouldn't go away last night; and, when I said I was a
very common man, said 'No, your Honor! Bless your
Honor, don't say that!' I was quite ashamed. I really
felt as if I hadn't a right to wear it."

Happy Blind Girl! How merry she was in her
exultation!

"I see you, father," she said, clasping her hands,
"as plainly, as if I had the eyes I never want when
you are with me. A blue coat" —

"Bright blue," said Caleb.

"Yes, yes! Bright blue!" exclaimed the girl, turning
up her radiant face; "the colour I can just remember
in the blessed sky! You told me it was blue before!
A bright blue coat" —

"Made loose to the figure," suggested Caleb.

"Yes! loose to the figure!" cried the Blind Girl,
laughing heartily; "and in it, you, dear father, with
your merry eye, your smiling face, your free step, and
your dark hair — looking so young and handsome!"

"Halloa! Halloa!" said Caleb. "I shall be vain,
presently."

"/ think you are already, cried the Blind Girl,

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 269

pointing at him, in her glee. "I know you, father!
Ha ha ha! I've found you out, you see!"

How different the picture in her mind, from Caleb,
as he sat observing her! She had spoken of his free
step. She was right in that. For years and years, he
had never once crossed that threshold at his own slow
pace, but with a footfall counterfeited for her ear;
and never had he, when his heart was heaviest, for-
gotten the light tread that was to render hers so
cheerful and courageous!

Heaven knows! But I think Caleb's vague bewil-
derment of manner may have half originated in his
having confused himself about himself and everything
around him, for the love of his Blind Daughter. How
could the little man be otherwise than bewildered,
after labouring for so many years to destroy his own
identity, and that of all the objects that had any bear-
ing on it!

"There we are," said Caleb, falling back a pace
or two to form the better judgment of his work; "as
near the real thing as sixpenn'orth of halfpence is to
sixpence. What a pity that the whole front of the
house opens at once! If there was only a staircase in
it, now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in at!
But that's the worst of my calling, I'm always deluding
myself, and swindling myself."

"You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired,
father?"

"Tired," echoed Caleb, with a great burst of anima-
tion, "what should tire me Bertha? / was never tired.
What does it mean?"

To give the greater force to his words, he checked
himself in an involuntary imitation of two half lengtli

270 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

stretching and yawning figures on the mantel-shelf,
who were represented as in one eternal state of weari-
ness from the waist upwards; and hummed a fragment
of a song. It was a Bacchanalian song, something
about a Sparkling Bowl. He sang it with an assump-
tion of a Devil-may-care voice, that made his face a
thousand times more meagre and more thoughtful
than ever.

"What! You're singing, are you?" said Tackle-
ton, putting his head in at the door. "Go it! / can't
sing."

Nobody would have suspected him of it. He
hadn't what is generally termed a singing face, by any
means.

"I can't afford to sing," said Tackleton. "I'm glad
you can. I hope you can afford to v.^ork too. Hardly
time for both, I should think?"

"If you could only see him. Bertha, how he's wink-
ing at me!" whispered Caleb. "Such a man to joke!
you'd think, if you didn't know him, he was in earnest
— wouldn't you now?"

The BHnd Girl smiled and nodded.

"The bird that can sing and won't sing, must be
made to sing, they say," grumbled Tackleton. "What
about the owl that can't sing, and oughtn't to sing,
and will sing; is there anything that he should be made
to do?"

"The extent to which he's winking at this mo-
ment!" whispered Caleb to his daughter. "O, my
gracious!"

"Always merry and light-hearted with us!" cried
the smiling Bertha.

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 27 I

"O! you're there, are you?" answered Tackleton.
"Poor Idiot!"

He really did believe she was an Idiot; and he
founded the belief, I can't say whether consciously or
not, upon her being fond of him.

"Well! and being there, — how are you?" said
Tackleton in his grudging way.

"Oh! well; quite well. And as happy as even you
can wish me to be. As happy as you would make the
whole world, if you could!"

"Poor Idiot!" muttered Tackleton. "No gleam of
reason. Not a gleam!"

The Blind Girl took his hand and kissed it; held
it for a moment in her own two hands; and laid her
cheek against it tenderly, before releasing it. There
was such unspeakable affection and such fervent grati-
tude in the act, that Tackleton himself was moved to
say, in a milder growl than usual:

"What's the matter now?"

"I stood it close beside my pillow when I went to
sleep last night, and remembered it in my dreams.
And when the day broke, and the glorious red sun —
the red sun, father?"

"Red in the mornings and the evenings, Bertha,"
said poor Caleb, with a woeful glance at his em-
ployer.

"When it rose, and the bright light I almost fear
to strike myself against in walking, came into the room,
I turned the little tree towards it, and blessed Heaven
for making things so precious, and blessed you for
sending them to cheer me!"

"Bedlam broke loose!" said Tackleton under his

2^2 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

breath. "We shall arrive at the strait waistcoat and
mufflers soon. We're getting on!"

Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other,
stared vacantly before him while his daughter spoke,
as if he really were uncertain (I believe he was)
whether Tackleton had done anything to deserve her
thanks, or not. If he could have been a perfectly free
agent, at that moment, required, on pain of death, to
kick the Toy merchant, or fall at his feet, according
to his merits, I believe it would have been an even
chance which course he would have taken. Yet Caleb
knew that with his own hands he had brought the
little rose tree home for her, so carefully, and that
with his own lips he had forged the innocent deception
which should help to keep her from suspecting how
much, how very much, he every day denied himself,
that she might be the happier.

"Bertha!" said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce,
a little cordiality. "Come here."

"Oh! I can come straight to you! You needn't
guide me!" she rejoined.

"Shall I tell you a secret. Bertha?"

"If you will!" she answered, eagerly.

How bright the darkened face! How adorned with
light, the listening head!

"This is the day on which little what's-her-name,
the spoilt child, Peerybingle's wife, pays her regular
visit to you — makes her fantastic Pic-Nic here, an't it?"
said Tackleton, with a strong expression of distaste
for the whole concern.

"Yes," replied Bertha. "This is the day."

"I thought so," said Tackleton. "I should like to
join the party."

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 273

"Do you hear that, father!" cried the Blind Girl
in an ecstasy.

"Yes, yes, I hear it," murmured Caleb, with the
fixed look of a sleep-walker; "but I don't believe it.
It's one of my lies, I've no doubt."

"You see I — I want to bring the Peerybingles a
little more into company with May Fielding," said
Tackleton. "I am going to be married to May."

"Married!" cried the Blind Girl, starting from him.

"She's such a con-founded idiot," muttered Tackle-
ton, "that I was afraid she'd never comprehend me.
Ah, Bertha! Married! Church, parson, clerk, beadle,
glass-coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake, favours, mar-
row-bones, cleavers, and all the rest of the tom-foolery.
A wedding, you know; a wedding. Don't you know
what a wedding is?"

"I know," replied the Blind Girl, in a gentle tone.
"I understand!"

"Do you?" muttered Tackleton. "It's more than
I expected. Well! On that account I want to join
the party, and to bring May and her mother. I'll
send in a little something or other, before the afternoon.
A cold leg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of
that sort. You'll expect me?"

"Yes," she answered.

She had drooped her head, and turned away; and
so stood, with her hands crossed, musing.

"I don't think you will," muttered Tackleton, look-
ing at her; "for you seem to have forgotten all about
it, already. Caleb!"

"I may venture to say I'm here, I suppose," thought
Caleb. "Sir!"

A Ckrisimas Carol, fftc. 1 8

274 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

"Take care she don't forget what I've been saying
to her."

^^She never forgets," returned Caleb. "It's one of
the few things she an't clever in."

"Every man thinks his own geese swans," observed
the Toy merchant, with a shrug. "Poor devil!"

Having delivered himself of which remark, with
infinite contempt, old Gruff and Tackleton withdrew.

Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in
meditation. The gaiety had vanished from her down-
cast face, and it was very sad. Three or four times
she shook her head, as if bewailing some remembrance
or some loss; but her sorrowful reflections found no
vent in words.

It was not until Caleb had been occupied, some
time, in yoking a team of horses to a wagon by the
summary process of nailing the harness to the vital
parts of their bodies, that she drew near to his work-
ing-stool, and sitting down beside him, said:

"Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes,
my patient, willing eyes."

"Here they are," said Caleb. "Always ready.
They are more yours than mine. Bertha, any hour in
the four and twenty. What shall your eyes do for
you, dear?"

"Look round the room, father."

"All right," said Caleb. "No sooner said than
done. Bertha."

"Tell me about it."

"It's much the same as usual," said Caleb.
"Homely, but very snug. The gay colours on the
walls; the bright flowers on the plates and dishes; the
shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 275

general cheerfulness and neatness of the building;
make it very pretty."

Cheerful and neat it was, wherever Bertha's hands
could busy themselves. But nowhere else, were cheer-
fulness and neatness possible, in the old crazy shed
which Caleb's fancy so transformed.

"You have your working dress on, and are not so
gallant as when you wear the handsome coat?" said
Bertha, touching him.

"Not quite so gallant," answered Caleb. "Pretty
brisk though."

"Father," said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his
side, and stealing one arm round his neck, "tell me
something about May. She is very fair?"

"She is indeed," said Caleb. And she was indeed.
It was quite a rare thing to Caleb, not to have to draw
on his invention.

"Her hair is dark," said Bertha, pensively, "darker
than mine. Her voice is sweet and musical, I know.
I have often loved to hear it. Her shape — "

"There's not a Doll's in all the room to equal it,"
said Caleb. "And her eyes!" —

He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round
his neck, and, from the arm that clung about him,
came a warning pressure which he understood too
well.

He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment,
and then fell back upon the song about the sparkling
bowl, his infallible resource in all such difficulties.

"Our friend, father, our benefactor. I am never
tired you know of hearing about him. — Now, was I
ever?" she said, hastily.

18*

276 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

"Of course not," answered Caleb, "and with
reason."

"Ah! With how much reason!" cried the Blind
Girl. With such fervency, that Caleb, though his
motives were so pure, could not endure to meet her
face; but dropped his eyes, as if she could have read
in them his innocent deceit.

"Then tell me again about him, dear father," said
Bertha. "Many times again! His face is benevolent,
kind, and tender. Honest and true, I am sure it is.
The manly heart that tries to cloak all favours with a
show of roughness and unwillingness, beats in its every
look and glance."

"And makes it noble," added Caleb, in his quiet
desperation.

"And makes it noble!" cried the Blind Girl. "He
is older than May, father."

"Ye-es," said Caleb, reluctantly. "He's a little
older than May. But that don't signify."

"Oh father, yes! To be his patient companion in
infirmity and age; to be his gentle nurse in sickness,
and his constant friend in suffering and sorrow; to
know no weariness in working for his sake; to watch
him, tend him, sit beside his bed and talk to him
awake, and pray for him asleep; what privileges these
would be! What opportunities for proving all her
truth and her devotion to him! Would she do all
this, dear father?"

"No doubt of it," said Caleb.

"I love her, father; I can love her from my soul!"
exclaimed the BHnd Girl. And saying so, she laid her
poor blind face on Caleb's shoulder, and so wept and

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 277

wept, that he was almost sorry to have brought that
tearful happiness upon her.

In the mean time, there had been a pretty sharp
commotion at John Peerybingle's, for, little Mrs.
Peerybingle naturally couldn't think of going anywhere
without the Baby, and to get the Baby under weigh,
took time. Not that there was much of the Baby,
speaking of it as a thing of weight and measure, but,
there was a vast deal to do about and about it, and
it all had to be done by easy stages. For instance,
when the Baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a
certain point of dressing, and you might have rationally
supposed that another touch or two would finish him
off, and turn him out a tip-top Baby challenging the
world, he was unexpectedly extinguished in a flannel
cap, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so
to speak) between two blankets for the best part of
an hour. From this state of inaction he was then
recalled, shining very much and roaring violently, to
partake of — well? I would rather say, if you'll per-
mit me to speak generally — of a slight repast. After
which, he went to sleep again. Mrs. Peerybingle took
advantage of this interval, to make herself as smart in
a small way as ever you saw anybody in all your life;
and, during the same short truce. Miss Slowboy in-
sinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so sur-
prising and ingenious, that it had no connection with
herself, or anything else in the universe, but was a
shrunken, dog's-eared, independent fact, pursuing its
lonely course without the least regard to anybody.
By this time, the Baby, being all alive again, was in-
vested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and
Miss Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its

278 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

body, and a sort of nankeen raised-pie for its head;
and so in course of time they all three got down to
the door, where the old horse had already taken more
than the full value of his day's toll out of the Turn-
pike Trust, by tearing up the road with his impatient
autographs; and whence Boxer might be dimly seen
in the remote perspective, standing looking back, and
tempting him to come on without orders.

As to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping
Mrs. Peerybingle into the cart, you know very little
of John, if you think that was necessary. Before you
could have seen him lift her from the ground, there
she was in her place, fresh and rosy, saying, "John!
How can you! Think of Tilly!"

If I might be allowed to mention a young lady's
legs, on any terms, I would observe of Miss Slowboy's
that there was a fatality about them which rendered
them singularly liable to be grazed; and that she
never effected the smallest ascent or descent, without
recording the circumstance upon them with a notch,
as Robinson Crusoe marked the days upon his wooden
calendar. But as this might be considered ungenteel,
I'll think of it.

"John? You've got the basket with the Veal and
Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer?" said
Dot. "If you haven't, you must turn round again,
this very minute."

"You're a nice little article," returned the Carrier,
"to be talking about turning round, after keeping me
a full quarter of an hour behind my time."

"I am sorry for it, John," said Dot in a great
bustle, "but I really could not think of going to
Bertha's — I would not do it, John, on any account —

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 279

without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the
bottles of Beer. Way!"

This monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who
didn't mind it at all.

"Oh do way, John!" said Mrs. Peerybingle.
"Please!"

"It'll be time enough to do that," returned John,
"when I begin to leave things, behind me. The basket's
here, safe enough."

"What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John,
not to have said so, at once, and saved me such a
turn! I declare I wouldn't go to Bertha's without
the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles of
Beer, for any money. Regularly once a fortnight ever
since we have been married, John, have we made our
little Pic-Nic there. If anything was to go wrong with
it, I should almost think we were never to be lucky
again."

"It was a kind thought in the first instance," said
the Carrier; "and I honour you for it, little woman."

"My dear John," replied Dot, turning very red.
"Don't talk about honouring me. Good Gracious!"

"By tie bye — " observed the Carrier. "That old
gentleman," —

Again so visibly and instantly embarrassed!

"He's an odd fish," said the Carrier, looking straight
along the road before them. "I can't make him out.
I don't believe there's any harm in him."

" None at all. I'm — I'm sure there's none at all."

"Yes," said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to
her face by the great earnestness of her manner. "I
am glad you feel so certain of it, because it's a con-
firmation to me. It's curious that he should have

28o THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

taken it into his head to ask leave to go on lodging
with us; an't it? Things come about so strangely."

"So very strangely," she rejoined in a low voice,
scarcely audible.

"However, he's a good-natured old gentleman,"
said John, "and pays as a gentleman, and I think his
word is to be relied upon, like a gentleman's. I had
quite a long talk with him this morning: he can hear
me better already, he says, as he gets more used to
my voice. He told me a great deal about himself,
and I told him a good deal about myself, and a rare
lot of questions he asked me. I gave him information
about my having two beats, you know, in my busi-
ness; one day to the right from our house and back
again; another day to the left from our house and
back again (for he's a stranger and don't know the
names of place about here); and he seemed quite
pleased. *Why, then I shall be returning home to-
night your way,' he says, 'when I thought you'd be
coming in an exactly opposite direction. That's
capital! I may trouble you for another lift perhaps,
but I'll engage not to fall so sound asleep again.'
He was sound asleep, sure-ly! — Dot! what are you
thinking of?"

"Thinking of, John? I — I was listening to you.'*

"O! That's all right!" said the hones; Carrier.
"I was afraid, from the look of your face, that I had
gone rambling on so long, as to set you thinking
about something else. I was very near it, I'll be
bound."

Dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some
little time, in silence. But, it was not easy to remain
silent very long in John Peerybingle's cart, for every-

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 28 1

body on the road had something to say. Though it
might only be "How are you!" and indeed it was
very often nothing else, still, to give that back again
in the right spirit of cordiality, required, not merely
a nod and a smile, but as wholesome an action of the
lungs withal, as a long-winded Parliamentary speech.
Sometimes, passengers on foot, or horseback, plodded
on a little way beside the cart, for the express purpose
of having a chat; and then there was a great deal to
be said, on both sides.

Then, Boxer gave occasion to more good-natured
recognitions of, and by, the Carrier, than half a dozen
Christians could have done! Everybody knew him,
all along the road — especially the fowls and pigs, who
when they saw him approaching, with his body all
on one side, and his ears pricked up inquisitively, and
that kob of a tail making the most of itself in the
air, immediately withdrew into remote back settle-
ments, without waiting for the honour of a nearer
acquaintance. He had business everywhere; going
down all the turnings, looking into all the wells, bolt-
ing in and out of all the cottages, dashing into the
midst of all the Dame-Schools, fluttering all the pigeons,
magnifying the tails of all the cats, and trotting into
the public-houses like a regular customer. Wherever
he went, somebody or other might have been heard to
cry, "Halloa! Here's Boxer!" and out came that some-
body forthwith, accompanied by at least two or three
other somebodies, to give John Peerybingle and his
pretty wife. Good Day.

The packages and parcels for the errand cart, were
numerous; and there were many stoppages to take
them in and give them out, which were not by any

282 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

means the worst parts of the journey. Some people
were so full of expectation about their parcels, and
other people were so full of wonder about their parcels,
and other people were so full of inexhaustible direc-
tions about their parcels, and John had such a lively
interest in all the parcels, that it was as good as a
play. Likewise, there were articles to carry, which
required to be considered and discussed, and in
reference to the adjustment and disposition of which,
councils had to be holden by the Carrier and the
senders: at which Boxer usually assisted, in short fits
of the closest attention, and long fits of tearing round
and round the assembled sages and barking himself
hoarse. Of all these little incidents. Dot was the
amused and open-eyed spectatress from her chair in
the cart; and as she sat there, looking on — a charming
little portrait framed to admiration by the tilt — there
was no lack of nudgings and glancings and whisper-
ings and envyings among the younger men. And this
delighted John the Carrier, beyond measure; for he
was proud to have his little wife admired, knowing
that she didn't mind it — that, if anything, she rather
liked it perhaps.

The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January
weather; and was raw and cold. But who cared for
such trifles? Not Dot, decidedly. Not Tilly Slowboy,
for she deemed sitting in a cart, on any terms, to be
the highest point of human joys; the crowning circum-
stance of earthly hopes. Not the Baby, I'll be sworn;
for it's not in Baby nature to be warmer or more
sound asleep, though its capacity is great in both
respects than that blessed young Peerybingle was, all
the way.

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 283

You couldn't see very far in the fog, of course;
but you could see a great deal! It's astonishing how-
much you may see, in a thicker fog than that, if you will
only take the trouble to look for it. Why, even to sit
watching for the Fairy-rings in the fields, and for the
patches of hoar-frost still lingering in the shade, near
hedges and by trees, was a pleasant occupation: to
make no mention of the unexpected shapes in which
the trees themselves came starting out of the mist,
and glided into it again. The hedges were tangled
and bare, and waved a multitude of blighted garlands
in the wind; but, there was no discouragement in this.
It was agreeable to contemplate; for, it made the fire-
side warmer in possession, and the summer greener in
expectancy. The river looked chilly; but it was in
motion, and moving at a good pace — which was a
great point. The canal was rather slow and torpid;
that must be admitted. Never mind. It would freeze
the sooner when the frost set fairly in, and then there
would be skating, and sliding; and the heavy old
barges, frozen up somewhere near a wharf, would
smoke their rusty iron chimney pipes all day, and
have a lazy time of it.

In one place, there was a great mound of weeds or
stubble burning; and they watched the fire, so white
in the day time, flaring through the fog, with only
here and there a dash of red in it, until, in conse-
quence as she observed of the smoke "getting up her
nose," Miss Slowboy choked — she could do anything
of that sort, on the smallest provocation — and woke
the Baby, who wouldn't go to sleep again. But,
Boxer, who was in advance some quarter of a mile or
so, had already passed the outposts of the town, and

284 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

gained the corner of the street where Caleb and his
daughter lived; and long before they had reached the
door, he and the Blind Girl were on the pavement
waiting to receive them.

Boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions
of his own, in his communication with Bertha, which
persuade me fully that he knew her to be bhnd. He
never sought to attract her attention by looking at
her, as he often did with other people, but touched
her invariably. What experience he could ever have
had of blind people or blind dogs I don't know. He
had never lived with a blind master; nor had Mr.
Boxer the elder, nor Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his re-
spectable family on either side, ever been visited with
blindness, that I am aware of. He may have found it
out for himself, perhaps, but he had got hold of it
somehow; and therefore he had hold of Bertha too, by
the skirt, and kept hold, until Mrs. Peerybingle and
the Baby, and Miss Slowboy, and the basket, were all
got safely within doors.

May Fielding was already come; and so was her
mother — a little querulous chip of an old lady with
a peevish face, who, in right of having preserved a
waist like a bedpost, was supposed to be a most
transcendant figure; and who, in consequence of hav-
ing once been better off, or of labouring under an im-
pression that she might have been, if something had
happened which never did happen, and seemed to
have never been particularly likely to come to pass —
but it's all the same — was very genteel and patronising
indeed. Gruff and Tackleton was also there, doing
the agreeable, with the evident sensation of being as
perfectly at home, and as unquestionably in his own

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 285

element, as a fresh young salmon on the top of the
Great Pyramid.

"May! My dear old friend!" cried Dot, running
up to meet her. "What a happiness to see you!"

Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as
glad as she; and it really was, if you'll believe me,
quite a pleasant sight to see them embrace. Tackleton
was a man of taste, beyond all question. May was
very pretty.

You know sometimes, when you are used to a
pretty face, how, when it comes into contact and com-
parison, with another pretty face, it seems for the mo-
ment to be homely and faded, and hardly to deserve
the high opinion you have had of it. Now, this was
not at all the case, either with Dot or May; for May's
face set off Dot's, and Dot's face set off May's, so na-
turally and agreeably, that, as John Peerybingle was
very near saying when he came into the room, they
ought to have been born sisters — which was the only
improvement you could have suggested.

Tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and,
wonderful to relate, a tart besides — but we don't mind
a little dissipation when our brides are in the case;
we don't get married every day — and in addition to
these dainties, there were the Veal and Ham-Pie, and
"things," as Mrs. Peerybingle called them; which were
chiefly nuts and oranges, and cakes, and such small
deer. When the repast was set forth on the board,
flanked by Caleb's contribution, which was a great
wooden bowl of smoking potatoes (he was prohibited,
by solemn compact, from producing any other viands),
Tackleton led his intended mother-in-law to the post
of honour. For the better gracing of this place at the

286 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

high festival, the majestic old soul had adorned her-
self with a cap, calculated to inspire the thoughtless
with sentiments of awe. She also wore her gloves.
But let us be genteel, or die!

Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old
schoolfellow were side by side; the good Carrier took
care of the bottom of the table. Miss Slowboy was
isolated, for the time being, from every article of fur-
niture but the chair she sat on, that she might have
nothing else to knock the Baby's head against.

As Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys,
they stared at her and at the company. The vener-
able old gentlemen at the street doors (who were all
in full action) showed especial interest in the party,
pausing occasionally before leaping, as if they were
listening to the conversation, and then plunging Avildly
over and over, a great many times, without halting for
breath — as in a frantic state of delight with the whole
proceedings.

Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to
have a fiendish joy in the contemplation of Tackleton's
discomfiture, they had good reason to be satisfied.
Tackleton couldn't get on at all; and the more cheer-
ful his intended bride became in Dot's society, the
less he liked it, though he had brought them together
for that purpose. For he was a regular dog in the
manger, was Tackleton; and when they laughed and
he couldn't, he took it into his head, immediately, that
they must be laughing at him.

"Ah May!" said Dot. "Dear dear, what changes!
To talk of those merry school-days makes one young
again."

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 287

"Why, you an't particularly old, at any time; are
you?" said Tackleton.

"Look at my sober, plodding husband there," re-
turned Dot. "He adds twenty years to my age at
least. Don't you, John?"

"Forty," John replied.

"How msiny j^ou'U add to May's, I am sure I don't
know," said Dot, laughing. "But she can't be much
less than a hundred years of age on her next birth-
day."

"Ha ha!" laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum
that laugh though. And he looked as if he could
have twisted Dot's neck, comfortably.

"Dear dear!" said Dot. "Only to remember how
we used to talk, at school, about the husbands we
would choose. I don't know how young, and how
handsome, and how gay, and how lively, mine was not
to be! And as to May's! — Ah dear! I don't know
whether to laugh or cry, when I think what silly girls
we were."

May seemed to know which to do; for the colour
flashed into her face, and tears stood in her eyes.

"Even the very persons themselves — real live young
men — we fixed on sometimes," said Dot. "We little
thought how things would come about. I never fixed
on John I'm sure; I never so much as thought of him.
And if I had told you, you were ever to be married
to Mr. Tackleton, why you'd have slapped me. Wouldn't
you. May?"

Though May didn't say yes, she certainly didn't say
no, or express no, by any means.

Tackleton laughed — quite shouted, he laughed so
loud. John Peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary

2 88 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

good-natured and contented manner; but his was a
mere whisper of a laugh, to Tackleton's.

"You couldn't help yourselves, for all that. You
couldn't resist us, you see," said Tackleton. "Here
we are! Here we are! Where are your gay young
bridegi'ooms now!"

"Some of them are dead," said Dot; "and some
of them forgotten. Some of them, if they could stand
among us at this moment, would not believe we were
the same creatures; would not believe that what they
saw and heard was real, and we could forget them so.
No! they would not believe one word of it!"

"Why, Dot!" exclai«ied the Carrier. "Little
woman!"

She had spoken with such earnestness and fire,
that she stood in need of some recalling to herself,
without doubt. Her husband's check was very gentle,
for he merely interfered, as he supposed, to shield old
Tackleton; but it proved effectual, for she stopped,
and said no more. There was an uncommon agitation,
even in her silence, which the wary Tackleton, who
had brought his half-shut eye to bear upon her, noted
closely, and remembered to some purpose too.

May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite
still, with her eyes cast down, and made no sign of
interest in what had passed. The good lady her
mother now interposed, observing, in the first instance,
that girls were girls, and byegones byegones, and that
so long as young people were young and thoughtless,
they would probably conduct themselves like young
and thoughtless persons: with two or three other posi-
tions of a no less sound and incontrovertible character.
She then remarked, in a devout spirit, that she thanked

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 289

Heaven she had always found in her daughter May,
a dutiful and obedient child; for which she took
no credit to herself, though she had every reason to
believe it was entirely owing to herself With regard
to Mr. Tackleton she said, That he was in a moral
point of view an undeniable individual, and That he
was in an eligible point of view a son-in-law to be
desired, no one in their senses could doubt. (She was
very emphatic here.) With regard to the family into
which he was so soon about, after some solicitation,
to be admitted, she believed Mr. Tackleton knew that,
although reduced in purse, it had some pretensions
to gentility; and that if certain circumstances, not
wholly unconnected, she would go so far as to say,
with the Indigo Trade, but to which she would not
more particula.rly refer, had happened differently, it
might perhaps have been in possession of wealth. She
then remarked that she would not allude to the past,
and would not mention that her daughter had for
some time rejected the suit of Mr. Tackleton; and
that she would not say a great many other things
which she did say, at great length. Finally, she
delivered it as the general result of her observation
and experience, that those marriages in which there
was least of what was romantically and sillily called
love, were always the happiest; and that she anti-
cipated the greatest possible amount of bliss — not
rapturous bliss; but the solid, steady-going article —
from the approaching nuptials. She concluded by
informing the company that to-morrow was the day
she had lived for expressly; and that when it was
over, she would desire nothing better than to be packed
up and disposed of, in any genteel place of burial.

A Chrixtina.'i Carol, etc, 1 9

2gO THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

As these remarks were quite unanswerable — which
is the happy property of all remarks that are suffi-
ciently wide of the purpose — they changed the current
of the conversation, and diverted the general atten-
tion to the Veal and Ham-Pie, the cold mutton, the
potatoes, and the tart. In order that the bottled
beer might not be slighted, John Peerybingle proposed
To-morrow: the Wedding-Day; and called upon them
to drink a bumper to it, before he proceeded on his
journey.

For you ought to know that he only rested there,
and gave the old horse a bait. He had to go some
four or five miles farther on; and when he returned
in the evening, he called for Dot, and took another
rest on his way home. This was the order of the day
on all the Pic-Nic occasions, and had been, ever since
their institution.

There were two persons present, besides the bride
and bridegroom elect, who did but indifferent honour
to the toast. One of these was Dot, too flushed and
discomposed to adapt herself to any small occurrence
of the moment; the other, Bertha, who rose up hur-
riedly before the rest, and left the table.

"Good bye!" said stout John Peerybingle, pulling
on his dreadnought coat. "I shall be back at the old
time. Good bye all!"

"Good bye John," returned Caleb.

He seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand
in the same unconscious manner; for he stood ob-
serving Bertha with an anxious wondering face, that
never altered its expression.

"Good bye young shaver!" said the jolly Carrier,
bending down to kiss the child; which Tilly Slowboy,

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 29 1

now intent upon her knife and fork, had deposited
asleep (and strange to say, without damage) in a little
cot of Bertha's furnishing; "good bye! Time will
come, I suppose, when you^W turn out into the cold,
my little friend, and leave your old father to enjoy his
pipe and his rheumatics in the chimney-corner; eh?
Where's Dot?"

"Fm here John!" she said, starting.

"Come, come!" returned the Carrier, clapping his
sounding hands.

"Where's the pipe?"

"I quite forgot the pipe, John."

Forgot the pipe! Was such a wonder ever heard
of! She! Forgot the pipe!

"I'll — ril fill it directly. It's soon done."

But it was not so soon done, either. It lay in the
usual place — the Carrier's dreadnought pocket — with
the little pouch, her own work, from which she was
used to fill it; but her hand shook so, that she en-
tangled it (and yet her hand was small enough to have
come out easily, I am sure), and bungled terribly. The
filling of the pipe and lighting it, those little offices in
which I have commended her discretion, were vilely
done, from first to last. During the whole process,
Tackleton stood looking on maliciously with the half-
closed eye; which, whenever it met hers — or caught
it, for it can hardly be said to have ever met another
eye: rather being a kind of trap to snatch it up
— augmented her confusion in a most remarkable
degree.

"Why, what a clumsy Dot you are, this afternoon!"
said John. "I could have done it better myself, I
verily believe!"

19*

292 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

With these good-natured words, he strode away,
and presently was heard, in company with Boxer, and
the old horse, and the cart, making lively music down
the road. What time the dreamy Caleb still stood,
watching his blind daughter, with the same expression
on his face.

"Bertha!" said Caleb, softly. "What has happened?
How changed you are, my darling, in a few hours —
since this morning. You silent and dull all day!
What is it? Tell me!"

"Oh father, father!" cried the Blind Girl, bursting
into tears. "Oh my hard, hard fate!"

Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he
answered her.

"But think how cheerful and how happy you have
been. Bertha! How good, and how much loved, by
many people."

"That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Always
so mindful of me! Always so kind to me!"

Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her.

"To be — to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear," he
faltered, "is a great affliction; but"

"I have never felt it!" cried the Blind Girl. "I
have never felt it, in its fulness. Never! I have some-
times wished that I could see you, or could see him —
only once, dear father, only for one little minute —
that I might know what it is I treasure up," she laid
her hands upon her breast, "and hold here! That I
might be sure I have it right! And sometimes (but
then I was a child) I have wept, in my prayers at night,
to think that when your images ascended from my
heart to Heaven, they might not be the true resem-
blance of yourselves. But I have never had these

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 293

feelings long. They have passed away, and left me
tranquil and contented."

"And they will again," said Caleb.

"But father! Oh my good gentle father, bear with
me, if I am wicked!" said the Blind Girl. "This is
not the sorrow that so weighs me down!"

Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes
overflow; she was so earnest and pathetic. But he
did not understand her, yet.

"Bring her to me," said Bertha. "I cannot hold
it closed and shut within myself Bring her to me,
father!"

She knew he hesitated, and said, "May. Bring May!"

May heard the mention of her name , and coming
quietly towards her, touched her on the arm. The
Blind Girl turned immediately, and held her by both
hands.

"Look into my face. Dear heart. Sweet heart!"
said Bertha. "Read it with your beautiful eyes, and
tell me if the truth is written on it."

"Dear Bertha, Yes!"

The Blind Girl, still upturning the blank sightless
face, down which the tears were coursing fast, addressed
her in these words:

"There is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that
is not for your good, bright May! There is not, in my
soul, a grateful recollection stronger than the deep
remembrance which is stored there, of the many many
times when, in the full pride of sight and beauty, you
have had consideration for Blind Bertha, even when
we two were children, or when Bertha was as much a
child as ever blindness can be! Every blessing on your
head! Light upon your happy course! Not the less my

294 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

dear May;" and she drew towards her, in a closer
grasp; "not the less, my bird, because, to-day, the
knowledge that you are to be His wife has wrung my
heart almost to breaking! Father, May, Mary! oh for-
give me that it is so, for the sake of all he has done to
relieve the weariness of my dark life: and for the sake
of the belief you have in me, when I call Heaven to
witness that I could not wish him married to a wife
more worthy of his goodness!"

While speaking, she had released May Fielding's
hands, and clasped her garments in an attitude of
mingled supplication and love. Sinking lower and
lower down, as she proceeded in her strange confession,
she dropped at last at the feet of her friend, and hid
her blind face in the folds of her dress.

"Great Power!" exclaimed her father, smitten at
one blow with the truth, "have I deceived her from
her cradle, but to break her heart at last!"

It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming,
useful, busy little Dot — for such she was, whatever
faults she had, and however you may learn to hate
her, in good time — it was well for all of them, I say,
that she was there: or where this would have ended,
it were hard to tell. But Dot, recovering her self-
possession, interposed, before May could reply, or
Caleb say another word.

"Come come, dear Bertha! come away with me!
Give her your arm, May. So! How composed she is,
you see, already; and how good it is of her to mind
us," said the cheery little woman, kissing her upon the
forehead. "Come away, dear Bertha. Come! and
here's her good father will come with her; won't you,
Caleb? To— be— sure!"

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 295

Well, well ! she was a noble little Dot in such things,
and it must have been an obdurate nature that could
have withstood her influence. When she had got poor
Caleb and his Bertha away, that they might comfort
and console each other, as she knew they only could,
she presently came bouncing back, — the saying is, as
fresh as any daisy; / say fresher — to mount guard over
that bridling little piece of consequence in the cap and
gloves and prevent the dear old creature from making
discoveries.

"So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly," said she,
drawing a chair to the fire; "and while I have it in
my lap, here's Mrs. Fielding, Tilly, will tell me all
about the management of Babies, and put me right in
twenty points where I'm as wrong as can be. Won't
you, Mrs. Fielding?"

Not even the Welsh Giant, who, according to the
popular expression, was so "slow" as to perform a
fatal surgical operation upon himself, in emulation of
a juggling-trick achieved by his arch enemy at break-
fast-time; not even he fell half so readily into the
snare prepared for him, as the old lady into this artful
pitfall. The fact of Tackleton having walked out;
and furthermore, of two or three people having been
talking together at a distance, for two minutes, leaving
her to her own resources; was quite enough to have
put her on her dignity, and the bewailment of that
mysterious convulsion in the Indigo trade, for four-
and-twenty hours. But this becoming deference to
her experience, on the part of the young mother, was
so irresistible, that after a short affectation of humility,
she began to enlighten her with the best grace in the
world; and sitting bolt upright before the wicked Dot,

296 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

she did, in half an hour, deliver more infallible domestic
recipes and precepts, than would (if acted on) have
utterly destroyed and done up that Young Peerybingle,
though he had been an Infant Samson.

To change the theme. Dot did a little needlework
— she carried the contents of a whole workbox in her
pocket; however she contrived it, / don't know — then
did a little nursing; then a little more needlework;
then had a little whispering chat with May, while the
old lady dozed; and so in little bits of bustle, which
was quite her manner always, found it a very short
afternoon. Then, as it grew dark, and as it was a
solemn part of this Institution of the Pic-Nic that she
should perform all Bertha's household tasks, she
trimmed the fire, and swept the hearth, and set the
tea-board out, and drew the curtain, and lighted a
candle. Then, she played an air or two on a rude
kind of harp, which Caleb had contrived for Bertha,
and played them very well; for Nature had made her
delicate little ear as choice a one for music as it would
have been for jewels, if she had had any to wear. By
this time it was the established hour for having tea;
and Tackleton came back again, to share the meal,
and spend the evening.

Caleb and Bertha had returned some time before,
and Caleb had sat down to his afternoon's work. But
he couldn't settle to it, poor fellow, being anxious and
remorseful for his daughter. It was touching to see
him sitting idle on his working stool, regarding her
so wistfully, and always saying in his face, "have
I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her
heart!"

When it was night, and tea was done, and Dot had

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 297

nothing more to do in washing up the cups and
saucers; in a word — for I must come to it, and there
is no use in putting it off — when the time drew nigh
for expecting the Carrier's return in every sound of
distant wheels, her manner changed again, her colour
came and went, and she was very restless. Not as
good wives are, when listening for their husbands.
No, no, no. It was another sort of restlessness from
that.

Wheels heard. A horse's feet. The barking of a
dog. The gradual approach of all the sounds. The
scratching paw of Boxer at the door!

"Whose step is that!" cried Bertha, starting up.

"Whose step?" returned the Carrier, standing in
the portal, with his brown face ruddy as a winter
berry from the keen night air. "Why, mine."

"The other step," said Bertha, "The man's tread
behind you!"

"She is not to be deceived," observed the Carrier,
laughing. "Come along sir. You'll be welcome,
never fear!"

He spoke in a loud tone; and as he spoke, the
deaf old gentleman entered.

"He's not so much a stranger, that you haven't
seen him once, Caleb," said the Carrier. "You'll give
him house-room till we go?"

"Oh surely John, and take it as an honour."

"He's the best company on earth, to talk secrets
in," said John. "I have reasonable good lungs, but
he tries 'em, I can tell you. Sit down sir. All friends
here, and glad to see you!"

When he had imparted this assurance, in a voice
that amply corroborated what he had said about his

298 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

lungs, he added in his natural tone, "A chair in the
chimney-corner, and leave to sit quite silent and look
pleasantly about him, is all he cares for. He's easily
pleased."

Bertha had been listening intently. She called
Caleb to her side, when he had set the chair, and asked
him, in a low voice, to describe their visitor. When
he had done so (truly now; with scrupulous fidelity),
she moved, for the first time since he had come in
and sighed, and seemed to have no further interest
concerning him.

The Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that
he was, and fonder of his little wife than ever.

"A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon!" he said,
encircling her with his rough arm, as she stood,
removed from the rest; "and yet I like her somehow.
See yonder, Dot!"

He pointed to the old man. She looked down. I
think she trembled.

"He's — ha ha ha! — he's full of admiration for
you!" said the Carrier. "Talked of nothing else, the
whole way here. Why, he's a brave old boy. I like
him for it!"

"I wish he had had a better subject John;" she
said, with an uneasy glance about the room. At
Tackleton especially.

"A better subject!" cried the jovial John. "There's
no such thing. Come! off with the great-coat, off
with the thick shawl, off with the heavy wrappers! and
a cosy half-hour by the fire! My humble service, Mis-
tress. A game at cribbage, you and I? That's hearty.
The cards and board. Dot. And a glass of beer here,
if there's any left, small wife!"

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 299

His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who
accepting it with gracious readiness, they were soon
engaged upon the game. At first, the Carrier looked
about him sometimes, with a smile, or now and then
called Dot to peep over his shoulder at his hand , and
advise him on some knotty point. But his adversary
being a rigid disciplinarian, and subject to an occasional
weakness in respect of pegging more than she was
entitled to, required such vigilance on his part, as left
him neither eyes nor ears to spare. Thus, his whole
attention gradually became absorbed upon the cards;
and he thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his
shoulder restored him to a consciousness of Tackleton.

"I am sorry to disturb you — but a word directly."
"I'm going to deal," returned the Carrier. "It's a
crisis."

"It is," said Tackleton. "Come here, man!"
There was that in his pale face which made the
other rise immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what
the matter was.

"Hush! John Peerybingle," said Tackleton. "I am
sorry for this. I am indeed. I have been afraid of it.
I have suspected it from the first."

"What is it?" asked the Carrier, with a frightened
aspect.

"Hush? I'll show you, if you'll come with me."
The Carrier accompanied him, without another
word. They went across a yard> where the stars were
shining, and by a little side door, into Tackleton's
own counting-house, where there was a glass window,
commanding the ware-room, which was closed for the
night. There was no light in the counting-house

300 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

itself, but there were lamps in the long narrow ware-
room; and consequently the window was bright.

"A moment!" said Tackleton. "Can you bear to
look through that window, do you think?"

"Why not?" returned the Carrier.

"A moment more," said Tackleton. "Don't com-
mit any violence. It's of no use. It's dangerous too.
You're a strong-made man; and you might do murder
before you know it."

The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled
a step as if he had been struck. In one stride he
was at the window, and he saw —

Oh Shadow on the Hearth! Oh truthful Cricket!
Oh perfidious Wife!

He saw her with the old man — old no longer, but
erect and gallant — bearing in his hand the false white
hair that had won his way into their desolate and
miserable home. He saw her listening to him, as he
bent his head to whisper in her ear; and suffering him
to clasp her round the waist, as they moved slowly
down the dim wooden gallery towards the door by
which they had entered it. He saw them stop, and
saw her turn — to have the face, the face he loved so,

so presented to his view! and saw her, with her

own hands, adjust the lie upon his head, laughing, as
she did it, at his unsuspicious nature!

He clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it
would have beaten down a lion. But opening it im-
mediately again, he spread it out before the eyes of
Tackleton (for he was tender of her, even then), and
so, as they passed out, fell down upon a desk, and
was as weak as any infant.

He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 3OI

his horse and parcels, when she came into the room,
prepared for going home.

"Now John, dear! Good night May! Good night
Bertha!"

Could she kiss them! Could she be blithe and
cheerful in her parting? Could she venture to reveal
her face to them without a blush? Yes. Tackleton
observed her closely, and she did all this.

Tilly was hushing the Baby, and she crossed and
recrossed Tackleton a dozen times, repeating drow-
sily:

"Did the knowledge that it was to be its wives,
then, v/ring its hearts almost to breaking; and did its
fathers deceive it from its cradles but to break its
hearts at last!"

"Now Tilly, give me the Baby! Good night, Mr.
Tackleton. Where's John, for goodness sake?"

"He's going to walk beside the horse's head," said
Tackleton; who helped her to her seat.

"My dear John. Walk? To-night?"

The muffled figure of her husband made a hasty
sign in the affirmative; and the false stranger and the
little nurse being in their places, the old horse moved
off. Boxer, the unconscious Boxer, running on before,
running back, running round and round the cart, and
barking as triumphantly and merrily as ever.

When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting
May and her mother home, poor Caleb sat down by
the fire beside his daughter; anxious and remorseful
at the core; and still saying in his wistful contempla-
tion of her, "have I deceived her from her cradle, but
to break her heart at last!"

The toys that had been set in motion for the

302 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

Baby, had all stopped and run down, long ago. In
the faint light and silence, the imperturbably calm
dolls, the agitated rocking-horses with distended eyes
and nostrils, the old gentlemen at the street doors,
standing half doubled up upon their failing knees and
ankles, the wry-faced nutcrackers, the very Beasts upon
their way into the Ark, in twos, like a Boarding-School
out walking, might have been imagined to be stricken
motionless with fantastic wonder, at Dot being false,
or Tackleton beloved, under any combination of cir-
cumstances.

CHIRP THE THIRD.

The Dutch clock in the corner struck Ten, when
the Carrier sat down by his fireside. So troubled
and grief-worn, that he seemed to scare the Cuckoo,
who, having cut his ten melodious announcements as
short as possible, plunged back into the Moorish
Palace again, and clapped his little door behind him,
as if the unwonted spectacle were too much for his
feelings.

If the little Haymaker had been armed with the
sharpest of scythes, and had cut at every stroke into
the Carrier's heart, he never could have gashed and
wounded it as Dot had done.

It was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up
and held together by innumerable threads of winning
remembrance , spun from the daily working of her
many qualities of endearment; it was a heart in which
she had enshrined herself so gently and so closely; a
heart so single and so earnest in its Truth, so strong

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 3O3

m right, so weak in wrong; that it could cherish
neither passion nor revenge at first, and had only
room to hold the broken image of its Idol.

But, slowly, slowly, as the Carrier sat brooding on
his hearth, now cold and dark, other and fiercer
thoughts began to rise within him, as an angry wind
comes rising in the night. The Stranger was beneath
his outraged roof. Three steps would take him to
his chamber door. One blow would beat it in. "You
might do murder before you know it," Tackleton
had said. How could it be murder, if he gave the
villain time to grapple with him hand to hand! He
was the younger man.

It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood
of his mind. It was an angry thought, goading him
to some avenging act, that should change the cheerful
house into a haunted place which lonely travellers
would dread to pass by night; and where the timid
would see shadows struggling in the ruined windows
when the moon was dim, and hear wild noises in the
stormy weather.

He was the younger man! Yes, yes; some lover
who had won the heart that he had never touched.
Some lover of her early choice, of whom she had
thought and dreamed, for whom she had pined and
pined, when he had fancied her so happy by his side.
O agony to think of it!

She had been above stairs with the Baby, getting
it to bed. As he sat brooding on the hearth, she
came close beside him, without his knowledge — in
the turning of the rack of his great misery, he lost all
Other sounds — and put her little stool at his feet.

364 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

He only knew it, when he felt her hand upon his
own, and saw her looking up into his face.

With wonder? No. It was his first impression,
and he was fain to look at her again, to set it right.
No, not with wonder. With an eager and inquiring
look; but not with wonder. At first it was alarmed
and serious; then, it changed into a strange, wild,
dreadful smile of recognition of his thoughts; then,
there was nothing but her clasped hands on her brow,
and her bent head, and falling hair.

Though the power of Omnipotence had been his
to wield at that moment, he had too much of its
diviner property of Mercy in his breast, to have turned
one feather's weight of it against her. But he could
not bear to see her crouching down upon the little
seat where he had often looked on her, with love and
pride, so innocent and gay; and, when she rose and
left him, sobbing as she went, he felt it a relief to
have the vacant place beside him rather than her so
long-cherished presence. This in itself was anguish
keener than all, reminding him how desolate he was
become, and how the great bond of his life was rent
asunder.

The more he felt this, and the more he knew, he
could have better borne to see her lying prematurely
dead before him with her little child upon her breast,
the higher and the stronger rose his wrath against his
enemy. He looked about him for a weapon.

There was a gun, hanging on the wall. He took it
down, and moved a pace or two towards the door of
the perfidious Stranger's room. He knew the gun was
loaded. Some shadowy idea that it was just to shoot
this man like a wild beast, seized him, and dilated in

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 305

his mind until it grew into a monstrous demon in
complete possession of him, casting out all milder
thoughts and setting up its undivided empire.

That phrase is wrong. Not casting out his milder
thoughts, but artfully transforming them. Changing
them into scourges to drive him on. Turning water
into blood, love into hate, gentleness into blind fero-
city. Her image, sorrowing, humbled, but still pleading
to his tenderness and mercy with resistless power,
never left his mind; but, staying there, it urged him
to the door; raised the weapon to his shoulder; fitted
and nerved his finger to the trigger; and cried "Kill
him! In his bed!"

He reversed the gun to beat the stock upon the
door; he already held it lifted in the air; some indis-
tinct design was in his thoughts of calling out to him
to fly, for God's sake, by the window —

When, suddenly, the struggling fire illuminated the
whole chimney with a glow of light; and the Cricket
on the Hearth began to Chirp!

No sound he could have heard, no human voice,
not even hers, could so have moved and softened him.
The artless words in which she had told him of her
love for this same Cricket, were once more freshly
spoken; her trembling, earnest manner at the moment,
was again before him; her pleasant voice — O what a
voice it was, for making household music at the fire-
side of an honest man! — thrilled through and through
his better nature, and awoke it into life and action.

He recoiled from the door, like a man walking in
his sleep, awakened from a frightful dream; and put
the gun aside. Clasping his hands before his face, he

A ChrLtiiuis Carol, etc, 20

306 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

then sat down again beside the fire, and found relief
in tears.

The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the
room, and stood in Fairy shape before him.

"*I love it,'" said the Fairy Voice, repeating what
he well remembered, "'for the many times I have
heard it, and the many thoughts its harmless music
has given me.'"

"She said so!" cried the Carrier. "True!"

"*This has been a happy home, John; and I love
the Cricket for its sake!'"

"It has been, Heaven knows," returned the Carrier,
"She made it happy, always, — until now."

"So gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful,
busy, and light-hearted!" said the Voice.

"Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did,"
returned the Carrier.

The Voice, correcting him, said "do."

The Carrier repeated "as I did." But not firmly.
His faltering tongue resisted his control, and would
speak in its own way for itself and him.

The Figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its
hand and said:

"Upon your own hearth" —

"The hearth she has blighted," interposed the
Carrier.

"The hearth she has — how often! — blessed and
brightened," said the Cricket; "the hearth which, but
for her, were only a few stones and bricks and rusty
bars, but which has been, through her, the Altar of
your Home; on which you have nightly sacrificed
some petty passion, selfishness, or care, and offered up
the homage of a tranquil mind, a trusting nature, and

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 307

an overflowing heart; so that the smoke from this
poor chimney has gone upward with a better fragrance
than the richest incense that is burnt before the
richest shrines in all the gaudy temples of this world!
— Upon your own hearth; in its quiet sanctuary; sur-
rounded by its gentle influences and associations; hear
her! Hear me! Hear everything that speaks the
language of your hearth and home!"

"And pleads for her?" inquired the Carrier.

"All things that speak the language of your hearth
and home, must plead for her!" returned the Cricket.
"For they speak the truth."

And while the Carrier, with his head upon his
hands, continued to sit meditating in his chair, the
Presence stood beside him, suggesting his reflections
by its power, and presenting them before him, as in
a glass or picture. It was not a solitary Presence.
From the hearthstone, from the chimney, from the
clock, the pipe, the kettle, and the cradle; from the
floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the stairs; from the
cart without, and the cupboard within, and the house-
hold implements; from everything and every place
with which she had ever been familiar, and with which
she had ever entwined one recollection of herself in
her unhappy husband's mind; Fairies came trooping
forth. Not to stand beside him as the Cricket did,
but to busy and bestir themselves. To do all honour
to her image. To pull him by the skirts, and point
to it when it appeared. To cluster round it, and em-
brace it, and strew flowers for it to tread on. To try
to crown its fair head with their tiny hands. To show
that they were fond of it, and loved it; and that there
was not one ugly, wicked, or accusatory creature to

20*

308 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

claim knowledge of it — none but their playful and
approving selves.

His thoughts were constant to her image. It was
always there.

She sat plying her needle, before the fire, and
singing to herself Such a blithe, thriving, steady
little Dot! The fairy figures turned upon him all at
once, by one consent, with one prodigious concen-
trated stare, and seemed to say "Is this the light wife
you are mourning for!"

There were sounds of gaiety outside, musical in-
struments, and noisy tongues, and laughter. A crowd
of young merry-makers came pouring in, among whom
were May Fielding and a score of pretty girls. Dot
was the fairest of them all; as young as any of them
too. They came to summon her to join their party.
It was a dance. If ever little foot were made for
dancing, hers was, surely. But she laughed, and shook
her head, and pointed to her cookery on the fire, and
her table ready spread; with an exulting defiance that
rendered her more charming than she was before.
And so she merrily dismissed them, nodding to her
would-be partners, one by one, as they passed out,
with a comical indifference, enough to make them go
and drown themselves immediately if they were her
admirers — and they must have been so, more or less;
they couldn't help it. And yet indifference was not
her character. O no! For presently, there came a
certain Carrier to the door; and bless her what a wel-
come she bestowed upon him !

Again the staring figures turned upon him all at
once, and seemed to say "Is this the wife who has
forsaken you!"

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 309

A shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture; call
it what you will. A great shadow of the Stranger, as
he first stood underneath their roof; covering its sur-
face, and blotting out all other objects. But, the
nimble Fairies worked like bees to clear it off again.
And Dot again was there. Still bright and beautiful.

Rocking her little Baby in its cradle, singing to it
softly, and resting her head upon a shoulder which
had its counterpart in the musing figure by which the
Fairy Cricket stood.

The night — I mean the real night: not going by
Fairy clocks — was wearing now; and in this stage of
the Carrier's thoughts, the moon burst out, and shone
brightly in the sky. Perhaps some calm and quiet
light had risen also, in his mind; and he could think
more soberly of what had happened.

Although the shadow of the Stranger fell at in-
tervals upon the glass — always distinct, and big, and
thoroughly defined — it never fell so darkly as at first.
Whenever it appeared, the Fairies uttered a general
cry of consternation, and plied their little arms and
legs, with inconceivable activity, to rub it out. And
whenever they got at Dot again, and showed her to
him once more, bright and beautiful, they cheered in
the most inspiring manner.

They never showed her, otherwise than beautiful
and bright, for they were Household Spirits to whom
falsehood is an annihilation; and being so, what Dot
was there for them, but the one active, beaming, plea-
sant little creature who had been the light and sun of
the Carrier's Home!

The Fairies were prodigiously excited when they
showed her, with the Baby, gossiping among a knot of

3IO THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

sage old matrons, and affecting to be wondrous old
and matronly herself, and leaning in a staid, demure
old way upon her husband's arm, attempting — she!
such a bud of a little woman — to convey the idea of
having abjured the vanities of the world in general,
and of being the sort of person to whom it was no
novelty at all to be a mother; yet in the same breath,
they showed her, laughing at the Carrier for being
awkward, and pulling up his shirt-collar to make him
smart, and mincing merrily about that very room to
teach him how to dance!

They turned, and stared immensely at him when
they showed her with the Blind Girl; for, though she
carried cheerfulness and animation with her where-
soever she went, she bore those influences into Caleb
Plummer's home, heaped up and running over. The
Blind Girl's love for her, and trust in her, and grati-
tude to her; her own good busy way of setting
Bertha's thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for
filling up each moment of the visit in doing something
useful to the house, and really working hard while
feigning to make holiday; her bountiful provision of
those standing delicacies, the Veal and Ham-Pie and
the bottles of Beer; her radiant little face arriving at
the door, and taking leave; the wonderful expression
in her whole self, from her neat foot to the crown of
her head, of being a part of the establishment — a
something necessary to it, which it couldn't be with-
out; all this the Fairies revelled in, and loved her for.
And once again they looked upon him all at once,
appealingly, and seemed to say, while some among
them nestled in her dress and fondled her, "Is this
the wife who has betrayed your confidence!"

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 3 1 1

More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long
thoughtful night, they showed her to him sitting on
her favourite seat, with her bent head, her hands
clasped on her brow, her falling hair. As he had seen
her last. And when they found her thus, they neither
turned nor looked upon him, but gathered close round
her, and comforted and kissed her, and pressed on one
another to show sympathy and kindness to her, and
forgot him altogether.

Thus the night passed. The moon went down; the
stars grew pale; the cold day broke; the sun rose.
The Carrier still sat, musing, in the chimney corner.
He had sat there, with his head upon his hands, all
night. All night the faithful Cricket had been Chirp,
Chirp, Chirping on the Hearth. All night he had
listened to its voice. All night, the household Fairies
had been busy with him. All night, she had been
amiable and blameless in the glass, except when that
one shadow fell upon it.

He rose up when it was broad day, and washed
and dressed himself. He couldn't go about his cus-
tomary cheerful avocations — he wanted spirit for them
— but it mattered the less, that it was Tackleton's
wedding-day, and he had arranged to make his rounds
by proxy. He had thought to have gone merrily to
church with Dot. But such plans were at an end. It
was their own wedding-day too. Ah! how little he had
looked for such a close to such a year!

The Carrier expected that Tackleton would pay him
an early visit; and he was right. He had not walked
to and fro before his own door, many minutes, when
he saw the Toy Merchant coming in his chaise along
the road. As the chaise drew nearer, he perceived

312 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

that Tackleton was dressed out sprucely for his mar-
riage, and that he had decorated his horse's head with
flowers and favours.

The horse looked much more like a bridegroom
than Tackleton, whose half-closed eye was more dis-
agreeably expressive than ever. But the Carrier took
little heed of this. His thoughts had other occupation.

"John Peerybingle!" said Tackleton, with an air of
condolence. "My good fellow, how do you find your-
self this morning?"

"I have had but a poor night. Master Tackleton,"
returned the Carrier shaking his head: "for I have
been a good deal disturbed in my mind. But it's over
now! Can you spare me half an hour or so, for some
private talk?"

"I came on purpose," returned Tackleton, alighting.
"Never mind the horse. He'll stand quiet enough,
with the reins over this post, if you'll give him a
mouthful of hay."

The Carrier having brought it from his stable and
set it before him, they turned into the house.

"You are not married before noon?" he said, "I
think?"

"No," answered Tackleton. "Plenty of time. Plenty
of time."

When they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was
rapping at the Stranger's door; which was only re-
moved from it by a few steps. One of her very red
eyes (for Tilly had been crying all night long, because
her mistress cried) was at the keyhole; and she was
knocking very loud, and seemed frightened.

"If you please I can't make nobody hear," said

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARIH. 313

Tilly, looking round. "I hope nobody an't gone and
been and died if you please!"

This philanthropic wish, Miss Slowboy emphasised
with various new raps and kicks at the door, which led
to no result whatever.

"Shall I go?" said Tackleton. "It's curious."

The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door,
signed to him to go if he would.

So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy's relief; and
he too kicked and knocked; and he too failed to get
the least reply. But he thought of trying the handle
of the door; and as it opened easily, he peeped in,
looked in, went in, and soon came running out again.

"John Peerybingle," said Tackleton, in his ear. "I
hope there has been nothing — nothing rash in the night?"

The Carrier turned upon him quickly.

"Because he's gone!" said Tackleton; "and the
window's open. I don't see any marks — to be sure,
it's almost on a level with the garden: but I was afraid
there might have been some — some scuffle. Eh?"

He nearly shut up the expressive eye, altogether;
he looked at him so hard. And he gave his eye, and
his face, and his whole person, a sharp twist. As if
he would have screwed the truth out of him.

"Make yourself easy," said the Carrier. "He went
into that room last night, without harm in word or
deed from me, and no one has entered it since. He is
away of his own free will. I'd go out gladly at that
door, and beg my bread from house to house, for life,
if I could so change the past that he had never come.
But he has come and gone. And I have done with him ! "

"Oh! — Well, I think he has got off pretty easy,"
said Tackleton, taking a chair.

314 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down
too, and shaded his face with his hand, for some Uttle
time, before proceeding.

"You showed me last night," he said at length,
"my wife; my wife that I love; secretly — "

"And tenderly," insinuated Tackleton.

"Conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him
opportunities of meeting her alone. I think there's
no sight I wouldn't have rather seen than that. I think
there's no man in the world I wouldn't have rather
had to show it me."

"I confess to having had my suspicions always,"
said Tackleton. "And that has made me objection-
able here, I know."

"But as you did show it me," pursued the Carrier
not minding him; "and as you saw her, my wife, my
wife that I love" — his voice, and eye, and hand, grew
steadier and firmer as he repeated these words: evi-
dently in pursuance of a steadfast purpose — "as you
saw her at this disadvantage, it is right and just that
you should also see with my eyes, and look into my
breast, and know what my mind is upon the subject.
For it's settled," said the Carrier, regarding him at-
tentively. "And nothing can shake it now."

Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent,
about its being necessary to vindicate something or
other; but he was overawed by the manner of his
companion. Plain and unpolished as it was, it had a
something dignified and noble in it, which nothing
but the soul of generous honour dwelling in the man
could have imparted.

"I am a plain, rough man," pursued the Carrier,

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 315

"with very little to recommend me. I am not a
clever man, as you very well know. I am not a young
man. I loved my little Dot, because I had seen her
grow up, from a child, in her father's house; because
I knew how precious she was; because she had been
my life, for years and years. There's many men I
can't compare with, who never could have loved my
little Dot like me, I think!"

He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time
with his foot, before resuming:

"I often thought that though I wasn't good enough
for her, I should make her a kind husband, and per-
haps know her value better than another: and in this
way I reconciled it to myself, and came to think it
might be possible that we should be married. And in
the end, it came about, and we were married."

"Hah!" said Tackleton, with a significant shake of
his head.

"I had studied myself; I had had experience of
myself; I knew how much I loved her, and how happy
I should be," pursued the Carrier. "But I had not — I
feel it now — sufficiently considered her."

"To be sure," said Tackleton. "Giddiness, frivo-
lity, fickleness, love of admiration! Not considered!
All left out of sight! Hah!"

"You had best not interrupt me," said the Carrier,
with some sternness , "till you understand me; and
you're wide of doing so. If, yesterday, I'd have struck
that man down at a blow, who dared to breathe a
word against her, to-day I'd set my foot upon his face,
if he was my brother!"

The Toy Merchant gazed at him in astonishment.
He went on in a softer tone:

3l6 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

"Did I consider," said the Carrier, "that I took
her — at her age, and with her beauty — from her young
companions, and the many scenes of which she was the
ornament; in which she was the brightest Httle star
that ever shone, to shut her up from day to day in
my dull house, and keep my tedious company? Did I
consider how little suited I was to her sprightly humour,
and how wearisome a plodding man like me must be,
to one of her quick spirit? Did I consider that it
was no merit in me, or claim in me, that I loved her,
when everybody must, who knew her? Never. I took
advantage of her hopeful nature and her cheerful dis-
position; and I married her. I wish I never had! For
her sake; not for mine!"

The Toy Merchant gazed at him, without winking.
Even the half-shut eye was open now.

"Heaven bless her!" said the Carrier, "for the
cheerful constancy with which she has tried to keep
the knowledge of this from me! And Heaven help me,
that, in my slow mind, I have not found it out before !
Poor child! Poor Dot! / not to find it out, who have
seen her eyes fill with tears, when such a marriage as
our own was spoken of! I, who have seen the secret
trembling on her lips a hundred times, and never
suspected it, till last night! Poor girl! That I could
ever hope she would be fond of me! That I could
ever believe she was!"

"She made a show of it," said Tackleton. "She
made such a show of it, that to tell you the truth it
was the origin of my misgivings."

And here he asserted the superiority of May Field-
ing, who certainly made no sort of show of being fond
of him.

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 317

"She has tried," said the poor Carrier, with greater
emotion than he had exhibited yet; "I only now begin
to know how hard she has tried, to be my dutiful and
zealous wife. How good she has been; how much she
has done; how brave and strong a heart she has; let
the happiness I have known under this roof bear wit-
ness! It will be some help and comfort to me, when
I am here alone."

"Here alone?" said Tackleton. "Oh! Then you
do mean to take some notice of this?"

"I mean," returned the Carrier, "to do her the
greatest kindness, and make her the best reparation,
in my power. I can release her from the daily pain
of an unequal marriage, and the struggle to conceal
it. She shall be as free as I can render her."

"Make her reparation!" exclaimed Tackleton twist-
ing and turning his great ears with his hands. "There
must be something wrong here. You didn't say that,
of course."

The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the
Toy Merchant, and shook him like a reed.

"Listen to me!" he said. "And take care that
you hear me right. Listen to me. Do I speak
plainly?"

"Very plainly indeed," answered Tackleton.

"As if I meant it?"

"Very much as if you meant it."

"I sat upon that hearth, last night, all night," ex-
claimed the Carrier. "On the spot where she has
often sat beside me, with her sweet face looking into
mine. I called up her whole life, day by day. I had
her dear self, in its every passage, in review before

3l8 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

me. And upon my soul she is innocent, if there is One
to judge the innocent and guilty!"

Staunch Cricket on the Hearth! Loyal household
Fairies !

"Passion and distrust have left me!" said the Car-
rier; "and nothing but my grief remains. In an unhappy
moment some old lover, better suited to her tastes and
years than I; forsaken, perhaps, for me, against her
will; returned. In an unhappy moment, taken by sur-
prise, and wanting time to think of what she did, she
made herself a party to his treachery, by concealing
it. Last night she saw him, in the interview we wit-
nessed. It was wrong. But otherwise than this, she is
innocent if there is truth on earth!"

"If that is your opinion" — Tackleton began.

"So, let her go!" pursued the Carrier. "Go, with
my blessing for the many happy hours she has given
me, and my forgiveness for any pang she has caused me.
Let her go, and have the peace of mind I wish her!
She'll never hate me. She'll learn to like me better,
when I 'm not a drag upon her, and she wears the chain I
have riveted, more lightly. This is the day on which
I took her, with so little thought for her enjoyment,
from her home. To-day she shall return to it, and I
will trouble her no more. Her father and mother will
be here to-day — we had made a little plan for keep-
ing it together — and they shall take her home. I can
trust her, there, or anywhere. She leaves me without
blame, and she will live so I am sure. If I should die
— I may perhaps while she is still young; I have lost
some courage in a few hours — she'll find that I re-
membered her, and loved her to the last! This is the
end of what you showed me. Now, it's over!"

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 319

"O no, John, not over. Do not say it's over yet!
Not quite yet. I have heard your noble words. I could
not steal away, pretending to be ignorant of what has
affected me with such deep gratitude. Do not say it's
over, till the clock has struck again!"

She had entered shortly after Tackleton, and had
remained there. She never looked at Tackleton, but
fixed her eyes upon her husband. But she kept away
from him, setting as wide a space as possible between
them; and though she spoke with most impassioned
earnestness, she went no nearer to him even then.
How different in this from her old self!

"No hand can make the clock which will strike
again for me the hours that are gone," replied the Car-
rier, with a faint smile. "But let it be so, if you will,
my dear. It will strike soon. It's of little matter what
we say. I'd try to please you in a harder case than
that."

"Well!" muttered Tackleton. "I must be off, for
when the clock strikes again, it'll be necessary for me
to be upon my way to church. Good morning, John
Peerybingle. I'm sorry to be deprived of the pleasure
of your company. Sorry for the loss, and the occasion
of it too!"

"I have spoken plainly?" said the Carrier, accom-
panying him to the door.

"Oh quite!"

"And you'll remember what I have said?"

"Why, if you compel me to make the observation,"
said Tackleton; previously taking the precaution of
getting into his chaise; "I must say that it was so
very unexpected, that I'm far from being likely to
forget it."

320 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

"The better for us both," returned the Carrier.
"Good bye. I give you joy!"

"I wish I could give it to you^^ said Tackleton.
"As I can't; thank'ee. Between ourselves, (as I told
you before, eh?) I don't much think I shall have the
less joy in my married life, because May hasn't been
too officious about me, and too demonstrative. Good
bye! Take care of yourself."

The Carrier stood looking after him until he was
smaller in the distance than his horse's flower and
favours near at hand; and then, with a deep sigh, went
strolling like a restless, broken man, among some neigh-
bouring elms; unwilling to return until the clock was
on the eve of striking.

His little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously;
but often dried her eyes and checked herself, to say
how good he was, how excellent he was! and once or
twice she laughed; so heartily, triumphantly, and in-
coherently (still crying all the time), that Tilly was
quite horrified.

"Ow if you please don't!" said Tilly. "It's enough
to dead and bury the Baby, so it is if you please."

"Will you bring him sometimes, to see his father,
Tilly," enquired her mistress, drying her eyes; "when
I can't live here, and have gone to my old home?"

"Ow if you please don't!" cried Tilly, throwing
back her head, and bursting out into a howl — she
looked at the moment uncommonly like Boxer; "Ow
if you please don't? Ow, what has everybody gone
and been and done with everybody making everybody
else so wretched? Ow-w-w-w!"

The soft-hearted Slowboy trailed off at this juncture
into such a deplorable howl, the more tremendous

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 32 1

from its long suppression, that she must infallibly have
awakened the Baby, and frightened him into some-
thing serious (probably convulsions), if her eyes had not
encountered Caleb Plummer, leading in his daughter.
This spectacle restoring her to a sense of the pro-
prieties, she stood for some few moments silent, with
her mouth wide open; and then, posting off to the
bed on which the Baby lay asleep, danced in a weird,
Saint Vitus manner on the floor, and at the same time
rummaged with her face and head among the bed-
clothes, apparently deriving much relief from those
extraordinary operations.

"Mary!" said Bertha. "Not at the marriage!"

"I told her you would not be there mum," whispered
Caleb. "I heard as much last night. But bless you,"
said the little man, taking her tenderly by both
hands, "/ don't care for what they say. / don't believe
them. There an't much of me, but that little should
be torn to pieces sooner than I'd trust a word against
you!"

He put his arms about her neck and hugged her,
as a child might have hugged one of his own dolls.

"Bertha couldn't stay at home this morning," said
Caleb. "She was afraid, I know, to hear the bells ring,
and couldn't trust herself to be so near them on their
v/edding-day. So we started in good time, and came
here. I have been thinking of what I have done," said
Caleb, after a moment's pause; "I have been blaming
myself till I hardly knew what to do or where to turn,
for the distress of mind I have caused her; and I've
come to the conclusion that I'd better, if you'll stay
with me, mum, the while, tell her the truth. You'll
stay with me the while?" he enquired, trembling from

A Christmas Carol, etc, 21

322 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

head to foot. "I don't know what effect it may have
upon her; I don't know what she'll think of me; I
don't know that she'll ever care for her poor father
afterwards. But it's best for her that she should be
undeceived, and I must bear the consequences as I
deserve ! "

"Mary," said Bertha, "where is your hand! Ah!
Here it is; here it is!" pressing it to her lips, with a
smile, and drawing it through her arm. "I heard them
speaking softly among themselves, last night, of some
blame against you. They were wrong."

The Carrier's Wife was silent. Caleb answered
for her.

"They were wrong," he said.

"I knew it!" cried Bertha, proudly. "I told them
so. I scorned to hear a word! Blame her with jus-
tice!" she pressed the hand between her own, and the
soft cheek against her face. "No! I am not so blind
as that."

Her father went on one side of her, while Dot re-
mained upon the other: holding her hand.

"I know you all," said Bertha, "better than you
think. But none so well as her. Not even you, father.
There is nothing half so real and so true about me, as
she is. If I could be restored to sight this instant, and
not a word were spoken, I could choose her from a
crowd! My sister!"

"Bertha, my dear!" said Caleb. "I have something
on my mind I want to tell you, while we three are
alone. Hear me kindly! I have a confession to make
to you, my darling."

"A confession, father?"

"I have wandered from the truth and lost myself,

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. ^2;^

my child," said Caleb, with a pitiable expression in his
bewildered face. "I have wandered from the truth, in-
tending to be kind to you; and have been cruel."

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him,
and repeated "Cruel!"

"He accuses himself too strongly, Bertha," said
Dot. "You'll say so, presently. You'll be the first to
tell him so."

"He cruel to me!" cried Bertha, with a smile of
incredulity.

"Not meaning it, my child," said Caleb. "But I
have been; though I never suspected it till yesterday.
My dear blind daughter, hear me and forgive me! The
world you live in, heart of mine, doesn't exist as I
have represented it. The eyes you have trusted in
have been false to you."

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him
still; but drew back, and clung closer to her friend.

"Your road in life was rough, my poor one," said
Caleb, "and I meant to smooth it for you. I have
altered objects, changed the characters of people, in-
vented many things that never have been, to make
you happier. I have had concealments from you, put
deceptions on you, God forgive me! and surrounded
you with fancies."

"But living people are not fancies?" she said hur-
riedly, and turning very pale, and still retiring from
him. "You can't change them."

"I have done so, Bertha," pleaded Caleb. "There
is one person that you know, my dove" —

"Oh father! why do you say, I know?" she an-
swered, in a term of keen reproach. "What and whom

21*

324 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

do / know! I who have no leader! I so miserably
blind!"

In the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her
hands, as if she were groping her way; then spread
them, in a manner most forlorn and sad, upon her
face.

"The marriage that takes place to-day," said Caleb,
"is with a stern, sordid, grinding man. A hard master
to you and me, my dear, for many years. Ugly in
his looks, and in his nature. Cold and callous always.
Unlike what I have painted him to you in everything,
my child. In everything."

"Oh why," cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it
seemed, almost beyond endurance, "why did you ever
do this! Why did you ever fill my heart so full, and
then come in like Death, and tear away the objects of
my love! O Heaven, how blind I am! How helpless
and alone!"

Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no
reply but in his penitence and sorrow.

She had been but a short time in this passion of
regret, when the Cricket on the Hearth, unheard by
all but her, began to chirp. Not merrily, but in a low,
faint, sorrowing way. It was so mournful, that her
tears began to flow; and when the Presence which had
been beside the Carrier all night, appeared behind her,
pointing to her father, they fell down like rain.

She heard the Cricket-voice more plainly soon, and
was conscious, through her blindness, of the Presence
hovering about her father.

"Mary," said the Blind Girl, "tell me what my
home is. What it truly is."

"It is a poor place. Bertha; very poor and bare

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. ^2$

indeed. The house will scarcely keep out wind and
rain another winter. It is as roughly shielded from the
weather, Bertha," Dot continued in a low, clear voice,
"as your poor father in his sackcloth coat."

The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the
Carrier's little wife aside.

"Those presents that I took such care of; that
came almost at my wish, and were so dearly welcome
to me," she said, trembling; "where did they come
from? Did you send them?"

"No."

"Who then?"

Dot saw she knew, already, and was silent. The
Blind Girl spread her hands before her face again.
But in quite another manner now.

"Dear Mary, a moment. One moment. More this
way. Speak softly to me. You are true, I know. You'd
not deceive me now; would you?"

"No, Bertha, indeed!"

"No, I am sure you would not. You have too
much pity for me. Mary, look across the room to
where we were just now — to where my father is — my
father, so compassionate and loving to me — and tell
me what you see."

"I see," said Dot, who understood her well, "an
old man sitting in a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on
the back, with his face resting on his hand. As if his
child should comfort him. Bertha."

"Yes, yes. She will. Go on."

"He is an old man, worn with care and work. He
is a spare, dejected, thoughtful grey-haired man. I see
him now, despondent and bowed down, and striving
against nothing. But, Bertha, I have seen him many

326 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

times before, and striving hard in many ways for one
great sacred object. And I honour his grey head, and
bless him!"

The Bhnd Girl broke away from her; and throwing
herself upon her knees before him, took the grey head
to her breast.

"It is my sight restored. It is my sight!" she cried.
"I have been blind, and now my eyes are open. I
never knew him! To think I might have died, and
never truly seen the father who has been so loving
to me!"

There were no words for Caleb's emotion.

"There is not a gallant figure on this earth," ex-
claimed the Blind Girl, holding him in her embrace,
"that I would love so dearly, and would cherish so
devotedly, as this! The greyer, and more worn, the
dearer, father! Never let them say I am blind again.
There's not a furrow in his face, there's not a hair
upon his head, that shall be forgotten in my prayers
and thanks to Heaven!"

Caleb managed to articulate "My Bertha!"

"And in my blindness, I believed him," said the
girl, caressing him with tears of exquisite affection,
"to be so different! And having him beside me,
day by day, so mindful of me always, never dreamed
of this!"

"The fresh smart father in the blue coat. Bertha,"
said poor Caleb. "He's gone!"

"Nothing is gone," she answered. "Dearest father,
no! Everything is here — in you. The father that
I loved so well; the father that I never loved enough,
and never knew; the benefactor whom I first began to
reverence and love, because he had such sympathy

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 327

for me; All are here in you. Nothing is dead to me.
The soul of all that was most dear to me is here —
here, with the worn face, and the grey head. And I
am NOT blind, father, any longer!"

Dot's whole attention had been concentrated, dur-
ing this discourse, upon the father and daughter; but
looking, now, towards the litte Haymaker in the Moorish
meadow, she saw that the clock was within a few min-
utes of striking, and fell, immediately, into a nervous
and excited state.

"Father," said Bertha, hesitating. "Mary."

"Yes, my dear," returned Caleb. "Here she is."

"There is no change in her. You never told me
anything of her that was not true?"

"I should have done it my dear, I am afraid,"
returned Caleb, "if I could have made her better than
she was. But I must have changed her for the worse,
if I had changed her at all. Nothing could improve
her, Bertha."

Confident as the Blind Girl had been when she
asked the question, her delight and pride in the reply
and her renewed embrace of Dot, were charming to
behold.

"More changes than you think for, may happen
though, my dear," said Dot. "Changes for the better,
I mean; changes for great joy to some of us. You
mustn't let them startle you too much, if any such
should ever happen, and affect you! Are those wheels
upon the road? You've a quick ear, Bertha. Are
they wheels?"

"Yes. Coming very fast."

"I — I — I know you have a quick ear," said Dot,
placing her hand upon her heart, and evidently talking

328 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

on, as fast as she could, to hide its palpitating state,
"because I have noticed it often, and because you
were so quick to find out that strange step last night.
Though why you should have said, as I very well re-
collect you did say. Bertha, * whose step is that!' and
why you should have taken any greater observation of
it than of any other step, I don't know. Though, as
I said just now, there are great changes in the world:
great changes: and we can't do better than prepare
ourselves to be surprised at hardly anything."

Caleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that
she spoke to him, no less than to his daughter. He
saw her, with astonishment, so fluttered and distressed
that she could scarcely breathe; and holding to a chair,
to save herself from falling.

"They are wheels indeed!" she panted, "Coming
nearer! Nearer! Very close! And now you hear
them stopping at the garden gate! And now you hear
a step outside the door — the same step, Bertha, is it
not! — and now!" —

She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight;
and running up to Caleb, but her hands upon his eyes,
as a young man rushed into the room, and flinging
away his hat into the air, came sweeping down upon
them.

"Is it over?" cried Dot

"Yes!"

"Happily over?"

"Yes!"

"Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb? Did you
ever hear the like of it before?" cried Dot.

"If my boy in the Golden South Americas was
alive" — said Caleb, trembling.

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 329

"He is alive!" shrieked Dot, removing her hands
from his eyes, and clapping them in ecstasy; "look at
him! See where he stands before you, healthy and
strong! Your own dear son. Your own dear living,
loving brother, Bertha!"

All honour to the little creature for her transports!
All honour to her tears and laughter, when the three
were locked in one another's arms! All honour to
the heartiness with which she met the sunburnt sailor-
fellow, with his dark streaming hair, half way, and
never turned her rosy little mouth aside, but suffered
him to kiss it, freely, and to press her to his bounding
heart!

And honour to the Cuckoo too — why not! — for
bursting out of the trap-door in the Moorish Palace
like a housebreaker, and hiccoughing twelve times on
the assembled company, as if he had got drunk for
joy!

The Carrier, entering, started back. And well he
might, to find himself in such good company.

"Look, John!" said Caleb, exultingly, "look here!
My own boy from the Golden South Americas! My
own son! Him that you fitted out, and sent away
yourself! Him that you were always such a friend
to!"

The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand;
but, recoiling, as some feature in his face awakened a
remembrance of the Deaf Man in the Cart, said:

"Edward! Was it you?"

"Now tell him all!" cried Dot. "Tell him all,
Edward; and don't spare me, for nothing shall make
me spare myself in his eyes, ever again."

"I was the man," said Edward.

330 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

"And could you steal, disguised, into the house of
your old friend?" rejoined the Carrier. "There was
a frank boy once — how many years is it, Caleb, since
we heard that he was dead, and had it proved, we
thought? — who never would have done that."

"There was a generous friend of mine, once; more
a father to me than a friend;" said Edward, "who
never would have judged me, or any other man, un-
heard. You were he. So I am certain you will hear
me now."

The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who
still kept far away from him, replied "Well! that's
but fair. I will."

"You must know that when I left here, a boy," said
Edward, "I was in love, and my love was returned.
She was a very young girl, who perhaps (you may tell
me) didn't know her own mind. But I knew mine,
and I had a passion for her."

"You had!" exclaimed the Carrier. "You!"

"Indeed I had," returned the other. "And she
returned it. I have ever since believed she did, and
now I am sure she did."

"Heaven help me!" said the Carrier. "This is
worse than all."

"Constant to her," said Edward, "and returning,
full of hope, after many hardships and perils, to redeem
my part of our old contract, I heard, twenty miles
away, that she was false to me; that she had forgotten
me; and had bestowed herself upon another and a
richer man. I had no mind to reproach her; but I
wished to see her, and to prove beyond dispute that
this was true. I hoped she might have been forced
into it, against her own desire and recollection. It

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 33 I

would be small comfort, but it would be some, I
thought, and on I came. That I might have the truth,
the real truth; observing freely for myself, and judging
for myself, without obstruction on the one hand, or
presenting my own influence (if I had any) before her,
on the other; I dressed myself unlike myself — you
know how; and waited on the road — you know where.
You had no suspicion of me; neither had — had she,"
pointing to Dot, "until I whispered in her ear at that
fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me."

"But when she knew that Edward was alive, and
had come back," sobbed Dot, now speaking for herself,
as she had burned to do, all through this narrative;
"and when she knew his purpose, she advised him by
all means to keep his secret close; for his old friend
John Peerybingle was much too open in his nature,
and too clumsy in all artifice — being a clumsy man in
general," said Dot, half laughing and crying — "to
keep it for him. And when she — that's me, John,"
sobbed the little woman — "told him all, and how his
sweetheart had believed him to be dead; and how she
had at last been over-persuaded by her mother into a
marriage which the silly, dear old thing called advan-
tageous; and when she — that's me again, John — told
him they were not yet married (though close upon it),
and that it would be nothing but a sacrifice if it went
on, for there was no love on her side; and when he
went nearly mad with joy to hear it; then she — that's
me again — said she would go between them, as she
had often done before in old times, John, and would
sound his sweetheart and be sure that what she — me
again, John — said and thought was right. And it was
right, John! And they were brought together, John!

^^2 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

And they were married, John, an hour ago ! And here's
the Bride! And Gruff and Tackleton may die a
bachelor! And I'm a happy little woman, May. God
bless you!"

She was an irresistible little woman, if that be any-
thing to the purpose; and never so completely irresis-
tible as in her present transports. There never were
congratulations so endearing and delicious, as those
she lavished on herself and on the Bride.

Amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the
honest Carrier had stood, confounded. Flying, now,
towards her, Dot stretched out her hand to stop him,
and retreated as before.

"No John, no! Hear all! Don't love me any
more, John, 'till you've heard every word I have to
say. It was wrong to have a secret from you, John.
I'm very sorry. I didn't think it any harm, till I came
and sat down by you on the little stool last night.
But when I knew by what was written in your face,
that you had seen me walking in the gallery with
Edward, and when I knew what you thought, I felt
how giddy and how wrong it was. But oh, dear John,
how could you, could you think so!"

Little woman, how she sobbed again! John Peery-
bingle would have caught her in his arms. But no;
she wouldn't let him.

"Don't love me yet, please John! Not for a long
time yet! When I was sad about this intended mar-
riage, dear, it was because I remembered May and
Edward such young lovers; and knew that her heart
was far away from Tackleton. You believe that, now.
Don't you, John?"

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 333

John was going to make another rush at this ap-
peal; but she stopped him again.

"No; keep there, please John! When I laugh at
you, as I sometimes do, John, and call you clumsy
and a dear old goose, and names of that sort, it's
because I love you, John, so well, and take such
pleasure in your ways, and wouldn't see you altered
in the least respect to have you made a king to-mor-
row."

"Hooroar!" said Caleb, with unusual vigour. "My
opinion!"

"And when I speak of people being middle-aged,
and steady, John, and pretend that we are a humdrum
couple, going on in a jog-trot sort of way, it's only
because I'm such a silly little thing, John, that I like,
sometimes, to act a kind of Play with Baby, and all
that: and make believe."

She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again.
But she was very nearly too late.

"No, don't love me for another minute or two, if
you please John! What I want most to tell you, I
have kept to the last. My dear, good, generous John,
when we were talking the other night about the
Cricket, I had it on my lips to say, that at first I did
not love you quite so dearly as I do now; that when I
first came home here, I was half afraid I mightn't
learn to love you every bit as well as I hoped and
prayed I might — being so very young, John! But,
dear John, every day and hour, I loved you more and
more. And if I could have loved you better than I
do, the noble words I heard you say this morning
would have made me. But I can't. All the affection
that I had (it was a great deal John) I gave you, as

334 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

you well deserve, long, long ago, and I have no more
left to give. Now, my dear husband, take me to your
heart again! That's my home, John; and never, never
think of sending me to any other!"

You never will derive so much delight from seeing
a glorious little woman in the arms of a third party,
as you would have felt if you had seen Dot run into
the Carrier's embrace. It was the most complete, un-
mitigated, soul-fraught little piece of earnestness that
ever you beheld in all your days.

You may be sure the Carrier was in a state of
perfect rapture; and you may be sure Dot was like-
wise; and you may be sure they all were, inclusive
of Miss Slowboy, who wept copiously for joy, and,
wishing to include her young charge in the general
interchange of congratulations, handed round the Baby
to everybody in succession, as if it were something to
drink.

But, now, the sound of wheels was heard again
outside the door; and somebody exclaimed that Gruff
and Tackleton was coming back. Speedily that
worthy gentleman appeared, looking warm and flus-
tered.

"Why, what the Devil's this, John Peerybingle!'*
said Tackleton. "There's some mistake. I appointed
Mrs. Tackleton to meet me at the church, and I'll
swear I passed her on the road, on her way here. Oh!
here she is! I beg your pardon, sir; I haven't the plea-
sure of knowing you; but if you can do me the favour
to spare this young lady, she has rather a particular
engagement this morning."

"But I can't spare her," returned Edward. "I couldn't
think of it."

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 335

"What do you mean, you vagabond?" said
Tackleton.

"I mean, that as I can make allowance for your
being vexed," returned the other with a smile, "I am
as deaf to harsh discourse this morning, as I was to
all discourse last night."

The look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and
the start he gave!

"I am sorry sir," said Edward holding out May's
left hand, and especially the third finger, "that the
young lady can't accompany you to church; but as
she has been there once, this morning, perhaps you'll
excuse her."

Tackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took
a little piece of silver paper, apparently containing a
ring, from his waistcoat pocket.

"Miss Slowboy," said Tackleton. "Will you have
the kindness to throw that in the fire? Thank'ee."

"It was a previous engagement, quite an old en-
gagement, that prevented my wife from keeping her
appointment with you, I assure you," said Edward.

"Mr. Tackleton will do me the justice to acknow-
ledge that I revealed it to him faithfully; and that I
told him many times, I never could forget it," said
May, blushing.

"Oh certainly!" said Tackleton. "Oh to be sure.
Oh it's all right. It's quite correct. Mrs. Edward
Plummer, I infer?"

"That's the name," returned the bridegroom.

"Ah! I shouldn't have known you sir," said
Tackleton, scrutinising his face narrowly, and making
a low bow. "I give you joy sir!"

"Thank'ee."

^^6 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

"Mrs. Peerybingle," said Tackleton, turning sud-
denly to where she stood with her husband; "I am
sorry. You haven't done me a very great kindness,
but, upon my life I am sorry. You are better than
I thought you. John Peerybingle, I am sorry. You un-
derstand me; that's enough. It's quite correct, ladies
and gentlemen all, and perfectly satisfactory. Good
morning!"

With these words he carried it off, and carried
himself off too: merely stopping at the door, to take
the flowers and favours from his horse's head, and to
kick that animal once, in the ribs, as a means of in-
forming him that there was a screw loose in his ar-
rangements.

Of course, it became a serious duty now, to make
such a day of it, as should mark these events for a
high Feast and Festival in the Peerybingle Calendar
for evermore. Accordingly, Dot went to work to pro-
duce such an entertainment, as should reflect undying
honour on the house and on every one concerned;
and in a very short space of time, she was up to her
dimpled elbows in flour, and whitening the Carrier's
coat, every time he came near her, by stopping him to
give him a kiss. That good fellow washed the greens,
and peeled the turnips, and broke the plates, and up-
set iron pots full of cold water on the fire, and made
himself useful in all sorts of ways : while a couple of
professional assistants, hastily called in from some-
where in the neighbourhood, as on a point of life or
death, ran against each other in all the doorways and
round all the corners, and everybody tumbled over
Tilly Slowboy and the Baby, everywhere. Tilly never
came out in such force before. Her ubiquity was the

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 337

theme of general admiration. She was a stumbling-
block in the passage at five and twenty minutes past
two; a man-trap in the kitchen at half-past two pre-
cisely; and a pit-fall in the garret at five and twenty
minutes to three. The Baby's head was, as it were, a
test and touchstone for every description of matter,
animal, vegetable, and mineral. Nothing was in use
that day that didn't come, at some time or other, into
close acquaintance with it.

Then there was a great Expedition set on foot to
go and find out Mrs. Fielding; and to be dismally
penitent to that excellent gentlewoman; and to bring
her back, by force, if needful, to be happy and forgiv-
ing. And when the Expedition first discovered her, she
would listen to no terms at all, but said, an unspeak-
able number of times, that ever she should have lived
to see the day! and couldn't be got to say anything
else, except "Now carry me to the grave:" which
seemed absurd, on account of her not being dead, or
anything at all like it. After a time, she lapsed into
a state of dreadful calmness, and observed that when
that unfortunate train of circumstances had occurred
in the Indigo Trade, she had foreseen that she would
be exposed, during her whole life, to every species of
insult and contumely; and that she was glad to find
it was the case; and begged they wouldn't trouble
themselves about her, — for what was she? — ok, dear!
a nobody! — but v/ould forget that such a being lived,
and would take their course in life without her. From
this bitterly sarcastic mood, she passed into an angry
one, in which she gave vent to the remarkable expres-
sion that the worm would turn if trodden on; and,
after that, she yielded to a soft regret, and said, if they

A Chrisimas Card, etc. 22

^^S THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH,

had only given her their confidence, what might she
not have had it in her power to suggest! Taking ad-
vantage of this crisis in her feeHngs, the Expedition
embraced her; and she very soon had her gloves on,
and was on her way to John Peerybingle's in a state
of unimpeachable gentility; with a paper parcel at her
side containing a cap of state, almost as tall, and quite
as stiff, as a mitre.

Then, there were Dot's father and mother to come,
in another little chaise; and they were behind their
time; and fears were entertained; and there was much
looking out for them down the road; and Mrs. Fielding
always would look in the wrong and morally im-
possible direction; and being apprised thereof, hoped
she might take the liberty of looking where she pleased.
At last they came; a chubby little couple, jogging
along in a snug and comfortable little way that quite
belonged to the Dot family; and Dot and her mother,
side by side, were wonderful to see. They were so
like each other.

Then, Dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance
with May's mother; and May's mother always stood
on her gentility; and Dot's mother never stood
on anything but her active little feet. And old Dot —
so to call Dot's father, I forgot it wasn't his right
name, but never mind — took liberties, and shook
hands at first sight, and seemed to thmk a cap but so
much starch and muslin, and didn't defer himself at
all to the Indigo Trade, but said there was no help
for it now; and, in Mrs. Fielding's summing up, was
a good-natured kind of man — but coarse, my dear.

I wouldn't have missed Dot, doing the honours in

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 339

her wedding-gown, my benlson on her bright face! for
any money. No! nor the good Carrier, so jovial and
so ruddy, at the bottom of the table. Nor the brown,
fresh sailor-fellow, and his handsome wife. Nor any
one among them. To have missed the dinner would
have been to miss as jolly and as stout a meal as man
need eat; and to have missed the overflowing cups in
which they drank The Wedding Day, would have been
the greatest miss of all.

After dinner, Caleb sang the song about the Spark-
ling Bowl. As I'm a living man, hoping to keep so,
for a year or two, he sang it through.

And, by-the-by, a most unlooked-for incident
occurred, just as he finished the last verse.

There was a tap at the door; and a man came
staggering in, without saying with your leave, or by
your leave, with something heavy on his head. Set-
ting this down in the middle of the table, symmetri-
cally in the centre of the nuts and apples, he said:

"Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and as he hasn't
got no use for the cake himself, p'raps you'll eat it."

And with those words, he walked off.

There was some surprise among the company, as
you may imagine. Mrs. Fielding, being a lady of in-
finite discernment, suggested that the cake was poisoned,
and related a narrative of a cake, which, within her
knowledge, had turned a seminary for young ladies,
blue. But she was overruled by acclamation; and
the cake was cut by May, with much ceremony and
rejoicing.

I don't think any one had tasted it, when there
came another tap at the door, and the same man ap-

22*

340 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

peared again, having under his arm a vast brown paper
parcel.

"Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and he's sent a few
toys for the Babby. They ain't ugly."

After the delivery of which expressions, he retired
again.

The whole party would have experienced great
difficulty in finding words for their astonishment, even
if they had had ample time to seek them. But, they
had none at all; for, the messenger had scarcely shut
the door behind him, when there came another tap,
and Tackleton himself walked in.

"Mrs. Peerybingle!" said the Toy Merchant, hat
in hand. "I'm sorry. I'm more sorry than I was this
morning. I have had time to think of it. John
Peerybingle! I'm sour by disposition; but I can't
help being sweetened, more or less, by coming face to
face with such a man as you. Caleb! This uncon-
scious little nurse gave me a broken hint last night, of
which I have found the thread. I blush to think how
easily I might have bound you and your daughter to
me, and what a miserable idiot I was, when I took her
for one! Friends, one and all, my house is very lonely
to-night. I have not so much as a Cricket on my
Hearth. I have scared them all away. Be gracious
to me; let me join this happy party!"

He was at home in five minutes. You never saw
such a fellow. ^Vhat had he been doing with himself
all his life, never to have known, before, his great
capacity of being jovial! Or what had the Fairies
been doing with him, to have effected such a change!

"John! you won't send me home this j^vening; will
you?" whispered Dot.

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 34 1

He had been very near it though!

There wanted but one Uving creature to make the
party complete; and, in the twinkHng of an eye, there
he was, very thirsty with hard running, and engaged
in hopeless endeavours to squeeze his head into a
narrow pitcher. He had gone with the cart to its
journey's end, very much disgusted with the absence
of his master, and stupendously rebellious to the
Deputy. After lingering about the stable for some
little time, vainly attempting to incite the old horse
to the mutinous act of returning on his own account,
he had walked into the tap-room and laid himself
down before the fire. But suddenly yielding to the
conviction that the Deputy was a humbug, and must
be abandoned, he had got up again, turned tail, and
come home.

There was a dance in the evening. With which
general mention of that recreation, I should have left
it alone, if I had not some reason to suppose that it
was quite an original dance, and one of a most un-
common figure. It was formed in an odd way; in this
way.

Edward, that sailor-fellow — a good free dashing
sort of fellow he was — had been telling them various
marvels concerning parrots, and mines, and Mexicans,
and gold dust, when all at once he took it in his head
to jump up from his seat and propose a dance; for
Bertha's harp was there, and she had such a hand upon
it as you seldom hear. Dot (sly little piece of affecta-
tion when she chose) said her dancing days were over;
/ think because the Carrier was smoking his pipe, and
she liked sitting by him, best. Mrs. Fielding had no
choice, of course, but to say her dancing days were

342 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.

over, after that; and everybody said the same, except
May; May was ready.

So, May and Edward get up, amid great applause,
to dance alone; and Bertha plays her liveliest tune.

Well! if you'll believe me, they have not been
dancing five minutes, when suddenly the Carrier flings
his pipe away, takes Dot round the waist, dashes out
into the room, and starts off with her, toe and heel,
quite wonderfully. Tackleton no sooner sees this,
than he skims across to Mrs. Fielding, takes her round
the waist, and follows suit. Old Dot no sooner sees
this, than up he is, all alive, whisks off Mrs. Dot into
the middle of the dance, and is the foremost there.
Caleb no sooner sees this, than he clutches Tilly
Slowboy by both hands and goes off at score; Miss
Slowboy, firm in the belief that diving hotly in among
the other couples, and effecting any number of
concussions with them, is your only principle of foot-
ing it.

Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its

Chirp, Chirp, Chirp; and how the kettle hums!
*****

But what is this! Even as I listen to them,
blithely, and turn towards Dot, for one last glimpse
of a little figure very pleasant to me, she and the rest
have vanished into air, and I am left alone. A Cricket
sings upon the Hearth; a broken child's-toy lies upon
the ground; and nothing else remains.

THE END.

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